During an October 6 TikTok Live for Fenty Beauty, Rihanna told viewers she has at least 170 unreleased songs tucked away. Per OK!

Magazine, she explained that she organizes her unreleased material in batches of ten tracks, saying, "If there are 10 products in a vault, then I have at least 17 vaults."

The 38-year-old superstar did not say why so many songs have never seen the light of day, but the sheer scale of the stash — enough for more than a dozen albums — instantly became the talking point among fans who have spent a decade waiting for new material.

The number lands harder because Rihanna's last full-length studio album, ANTI, arrived back in 2016, featuring fan-favorites like "Work" and "Love on the Brain." OK!

Magazine notes that in the years since she has released only occasional singles — "Lift Me Up" from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in 2022 and "Friend of Mine" from Smurfs in 2025 — while her business empire grew.

aol.com's report on the same reveal frames the vault as a measure of just how much music she has kept under wraps while the wait stretched to nearly ten years.

OK! Magazine points to two signs the vault may finally open.

In a Harper's Bazaar interview last year, Rihanna said she had "cracked the code" for the creative direction of her ninth album, saying, "This much time away from music needs to count for the next thing everyone hears... I cannot put up anything mediocre."

More recently, per OK!, her partner A$AP Rocky confirmed on the August 5 episode of The Jason Lee Show that "she in the studio right now," adding, "Yeah, I said it. Sorry, babe."

According to OK! Magazine's account of the Harper's Bazaar interview, Rihanna teased a bold new direction for the long-awaited project, one that would prioritize artistic expression over mainstream appeal.

"It's not going to be anything that anybody expects, and it's not going to be commercial or radio-digestible. It's going to be where my artistry deserves to be right now," she said.

For a decade devoted listeners have parsed every tease, so 170 shelved songs reads less like a backlog than a deliberate curation — the artist signalling that the worth in the wait must be proven.

No release date or title has surfaced, and neither outlet reports one. The vault reveal came through a beauty-brand livestream rather than a music announcement, keeping the roll-out as unpredictable as the promised sound.

Between Rocky's studio confirmation and Rihanna's own framing of 17 vaults of ten, fans now have a concrete number to speculate over — and OK! Magazine's reporting suggests the next full-length album, whenever it lands, is being built to justify every year of the wait.