Rihanna fans may have waited six years for the release of “Lift Me Up,” but they only had to wait two more weeks for her next single, “Born Again.”
On November 11, Rihanna dropped her second emotional ballad from the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack. “I’d give my heart to this place,” Rihanna sings in the final track of the album. “I’d give my whole soul and whatever it takes, never run away. And I’d relive this just to see your face again. I know that you’d do the same, born again.”
While Rihanna’s return to the music scene comes just in time for her to headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show in February 2023, her musical renaissance has been somewhat marred by the singer’s controversial decision to feature accused domestic abuser Johnny Depp in her latest Savage x Fenty runway show.
While Depp won his highly publicized defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard, he lost a separate libel case in the UK in 2018, and many Rihanna fans were confused and disappointed by his inclusion in the fashion show. “Johnny Depp has been embraced as a hero by unhinged right-wing misogynist extremists, and now he’s been invited to appear in the @SavageXFenty show,” Twitter user Drew Dixon tweeted on November 3. “Never expected such a powerful woman to succumb to the #MeToo backlash. Really disappointing @rihanna.”