Rihanna Says the New Songs She’s Been Working on for R9 Are ‘So Good’

While fans have been waiting patiently for R9 for years, Rihanna insists she’s been cutting some “Diamonds” in the studio.

At a London event in honor of the release of her new Fenty x Puma Creeper Phatty Earth Tone sneaker on Wednesday, April 17, Rihanna, 36, opened up in a red carpet interview with Entertainment Tonight about the new music she’s been working on. While she wasn’t able to offer too many details about the highly anticipated new album that she’s been teasing for years, the pop superstar did say that she thinks it’ll be worth the wait — calling her new tracks “so good.”

Riri first spoke about her long-awaited follow-up to 2016’s Anti when asked by ET whether she thinks her and her partner A$AP Rocky’s two sons — RZA, 23 months, and Riot, 8 months — might be musicians one day, or even appear on her new record.

She responded, “I mean, it’s up to them.”

“I already got stuff that I feel like I can make hits out of,” the “Umbrella” performer continued. “Really.”

Rihanna even teased that the tracks she’s worked on are “so good” that her rap superstar partner, 35, has discussed rapping over them for himself. “Me and Rocky are really trying to figure out who is going to use what,” she said.

She also admitted that she isn’t able to offer any additional details about the visuals she’s been conceiving, which she recently spoke about having “ideas” for in an Interview Magazine cover story.

When ET said fans want to know when R9 is dropping, the Fenty founder also confirmed that she has no idea when the release date is, joking, “I wanna know, too.”

The “We Found Love” singer recently got fans excited about her new music that’s on the way by opening up about her creative process this time around in an Interview feature published in early April.

In the interview, which was conducted in late February, she said that she has “a lot of visual ideas,” but, “I don’t have the songs for them yet.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The nine-time Grammy winner shared, “It’s weird. My brain is working backward right now. I usually have the music first, and the music leads me into all of these visual opportunities, and now I’m having all of these visuals.”

“But maybe that’s the key, this time,” she continued. “Maybe the visual ideas are leading me to the songs that I need to make.”

It has been over eight years since Rihanna released her Grammy-nominated LP Anti, which featured hits like “Work,” “Love On the Brain” and “Kiss It Better.”

In the years since, while she’s dropped a handful of singles like the Oscar-nominated “Lift Me Up” from the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack, but has primarily focused on her fashion and beauty empire.

It seems as though the hitmaker has been in the studio in recent months. Her longtime producer James Fauntleroy confirmed to PEOPLE in a December 2023 interview that the two had been working together again.

He said at the time, “I’ve known her for so long, and the last session I did for her was last week.”

“So I’ve known her for so long, and I think the biggest lesson I learned, whether I knew or not, was just confirmed by her ascent from pop starlet to literal billionaire is the value of taste,” the recording artist added.

In February, A$AP Rocky also offered an update about his partner’s new music to fans who approached him on the street. When asked where the album was, he smiled and said, “She’s working on it,” which fans recorded and shared online.