Rihanna hit the stage for the first time in seven years for the Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show last weekend – despite previously turning the big show down in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick.
The superstar singer explained her change of heart in her cover story for British Vogue published on Wednesday (February 15). Revealing that she’d been asked to do the Super Bowl every year for the last decade, Rih explained that being a mother now really changed her outlook on everything.
She also found it powerful that she’d be the second Black music act in a row following last year’s Hip Hop heavy Halftime Show, which featured Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar.
“There’s still a lot of mending to be done in my eyes,” Rihanna said of the NFL, “but it’s powerful to break those doors, and have representation at such a high, high level and a consistent level. Two Super Bowls back-to-back, you know, representing the urban community, globally. It is powerful. It sends a really strong message.”
She continued: “Raising a young Black man is one of the scariest responsibilities in life. You’re like, ‘What am I leaving my kids to? This is the planet they’re gonna be living on?’ All of those things really start to hit differently.”
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In 2019, Rihanna told Vogue why she’d turned down the Super Bowl. “I just couldn’t be a sellout,” she explained. “There’s things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way.”
This confirmed a report a few months earlier from US Weekly, which said an “insider” told it “the NFL and CBS really wanted Rihanna to be next year’s performer in Atlanta. They offered it to her, but she said no because of the kneeling controversy. She doesn’t agree with the NFL’s stance.”
This year’s performance ended up resulting in what has become Rihanna’s biggest streaming day on multiple music platforms, including Apple Music and Shazam. The singer’s concurrent worldwide listeners on Apple jumped a whopping 331 percent, and the hour following her performance also became her biggest hour in Apple Music history with both concurrent listeners and streams.
Additionally, Rihanna’s 2007 smash “Umbrella” reached and/or returned to the charts in 105 different countries – breaking a record for the song. It also currently sits as the No. 1 song among fans on Apple Music’s new karaoke service, Apple Music Sing.
“We Found Love” also reached and/or returned to the charts in 92 different countries and became her most Shazamed song from the Halftime Show, while “Work” re-entered the charts in more than 50 countries. Spotify also reported similar gains with streams of “Bitch Better Have My Money” increasing 2600 percent, “Diamonds” by 1400 percent and “Rude Boy” by 1170 percent.
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