Fans of Rihanna’s music should not hold their breath for a ninth record anytime soon, it seems, according to a conversation with the singer-turned-mogul in the latest issue of Interview magazine. 

The pop sensation, who hasn’t released an album since 2016’s Anti, recently spoke with Interview editor Mel Ottenberg on a wide range of topics, from her marriage to Fenty Beauty to music. On the latter topic, she has no news but that may not be great news for eager fans. 

“I have a lot of visual ideas,” the singer told the outlet. “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.”

“I don’t have the songs for them yet, she added. “But maybe that’s the key, this time. Maybe the visual ideas are leading me to the songs that I need to make.”

Ottenberg asked the pop star-turned-billionaire mogul if this could signify a rebirth of Rihanna, but she indicated that she can’t say at the moment: “I mean, I can’t tell you. The opps is watching.”

Rihanna stepped away from music in 2017 to launch Fenty Beauty and in 2018, she launched Savage X Fenty, her lingerie brand. She has since come into her own as a businesswoman, and a side effect of her busy schedule on that front, plus having two kids, is that there hasn’t been a new Rihanna album in nearly a decade. 

Asked by Ottenberg if she could have predicted this 15 years ago, when her single “Umbrella” was the ubiquitous radio hit and she had more music on the way, she said,  “I wouldn’t have had any idea.”

“The only thing that I knew I wanted, or that I could imagine, was motherhood,” Rihanna continued. “I didn’t know how it would come, but it is the best part of my journey so far. Everything else was a surprise.”