Even if Rihanna decided not to drop another project for the rest of her life, I’d be completely at peace knowing she went out with a bang.
It’s been 10 years, and ANTI still doesn’t sound dated in the slightest; if anything, it feels more timeless now than it did when it came out in 2016. In fact, I have this theory that if the album dropped today, it would still resonate, maybe even more than it did back then because I think now we’ve been able to zoom out on Rihanna; not just as an artist, but as a person. A real person with a valid perspective, emotions, and a life lived. It felt harder for people to do that back then when she was known as this larger-than-life hitmaker, churning out albums almost every year since 2005 leading up to ANTI, barely taking any breaks, always in the public eye and drastically changing up her image and style for every era.
We built a pedestal for her, one of our own making, and then resented her for standing on it. We claimed we wanted something different from Rihanna, something “real for once,” and when she gave us that with ANTI, we didn’t recognize it and took it for granted because maybe subconsciously, we’d already decided who she was allowed to be.
Almost every immediate critique of the album back then, read like we were too comfortable with the version of Rihanna we’d created, to make room for the version of her that actually existed. But it feels almost poetic that she left us to sit with this album and simmer in it for 10 years as if to forcefully say “This is me. Take it or leave it”
I think one of the main reasons ANTI felt (and still feels) different from the rest of Rihanna’s discography is that it was deeply personal in a way her previous work never quite was. From the intro on “Consideration,” she made it explicitly clear she was ready to do things her own way, even if that meant the music didn’t have to sound super polished and perfectly chart-ready, even if the ballads had voice cracks or she mumbled melodies on the tracks, even if the sound didn’t neatly fit into the genre boxes that already existed. In my opinion, ANTI nailed that contemporary R&B sound that so many artists have chased since, ushering in a new wave of genre-fluid, emotionally raw music. A precursor to that alternative R&B sound that has defined most of this decade.
The production on the album was so ahead of its time, and even though a single like “Work” was instantly digestible enough to cut through the charts, the entire album carries a certain grit and unapologetic IDGAF air that still feels radical. I’ll never get over that sultry guitar on “Kiss It Better,” the shimmery beat on “Sex With Me” (which I feel is EXTREMELY underrated by the way), the grungy guitar on “Woo” (which might be the sexiest song on the album), the haunting, ice-cold synths on “Needed Me”, every sonic choice down to her vocal delivery (even the Tame Impala cover) felt like HER. They weren’t perfect, but she delivered some of the most stunning, unguarded performances of her entire career. “Love on the Brain”? Insane.
If anything, ANTI proved that Rihanna wasn’t just a hitmaker or a “singles artist” (like some people say); she was fully capable of crafting a complete, cohesive body of work as well as the best in the industry.
The songs on here will sit with me forever, and if this truly is her last album, what a beautiful thing to leave us with: an offering so undeniably her that we’ll be holding onto it long after she’s moved on.
