It’s a tell-tale sign when mega stars like Rihanna start making business moves outside of their main breadwinning professions to diversify their portfolios. Without even announcing it, the Barbados beauty quietly transitioned into a global business mogul as founder of makeup powerhouse Fenty Beauty, skincare company Fenty Skin, lingerie brand Savage x Fenty, and the now temporarily defunct Fenty fashion, a collaboration with LVMH. Not to forget, she also branched into acting. Rihanna has made it more than clear that she’s more than a pop superstar, she is legend.
The “Work” singer appears to have filed a trademark for a new sector of business — the hair business. The trademark for Fenty Hair was filed on March 3 under Rihanna’s company name Roraj LLC, according to a report from Harpers Bazaar. Classes covered in the legal paperwork include a host of haircare products, such as hairstyling tools, coloring and bleaching, shampoos, conditioners, straightening and curling products.
There’s no official word on when Fenty Hair will make its debut, but the trademark filing is a sure indication that Rihanna has something in the works. However, when it comes to music, that’s another thing. Although Rihanna has been documented saying in interviews that she is working on new music, the reality is that she hasn’t dropped an album since 2016 when she released the triple platinum Anti. There might be good reason for that.
Not even considering her personal reasons, professionally, the music industry has experienced a downtrend in records sales, overall. Rihanna popped on the scene with her Def Jam debut Music of the Sun in 2005. The platinum album peaked at No. 10 on music charts and sold more than 2 million albums worldwide. It was up from there, with Rihanna releasing back-to-back albums A Girl like Me (2006), and Good Girl Gone Bad (2007).
But, then there was a shift in 2009 — the same year that the star and her then-boyfriend, singer Chris Brown, were involved in a physical altercation that left Rihanna bruised and battered and Brown falling from grace. Rihanna’s fourth studio album, Rated R (2009), saw disappointing worldwide sales of an estimated 3 million albums.
It didn’t take long for the “What’s My Name” singer to bounce back with Loud in 2010, selling over 8 million albums worldwide. But, her following releases, Talk That Talk (2011), Unapologetic (2012), and then, Anti (2016), saw album sales slowly decline. Anti was her lowest, with a report one million in album sales. Of course, it was most likely due to the transition from album sales to digital streaming and the onslaught of social media disruption removing gatekeepers, while causing a saturation of the market.
Luckily, Rihanna and her business entourage could see the tides changing in the music industry. She had accumulated enough money to live comfortably– in 2012, 2014, and 2019 she was among the top ten highest paid female music artists of all time– there was no better time to solidify her financial legacy. Rihanna has certainly done that over the years.
It’s a smart move on her behalf, especially if you consider the noise that her supposed fans make on social media demanding another album from the pop princess. One would think that those fans would actually go all out to support her music projects when they’d drop, but from Rihanna’s discography, it appears that those fans are all bark and no bite — well, at least when it comes to music. Besides, why trot on a stage in uncomfortable heels, working her tail off singing at the top of her range to entertain fickle fans, when she can simply let her money work for her?
