Rihanna would never quit music for good because it is the "foundation" on which the rest of her endeavours "flourish".
The 31-year-old star hasn't released an album since 2016's ' Anti' but has embarked on a number of acting projects and seen her lifestyle empire explode, but she insisted they don't mean she'll give up singing as her music is the "foundation" on which the rest of her endeavours "flourish".
Asked if she'd ever quit music, she said: "Oh, nooo. Music is, like, speaking in code to the world, where they get it.
"It's the weird language that connects me to them. Me the designer, me the woman who creates makeup and lingerie -- it all started with music.
"It was my first pen pal-ship to the world. To cut that off is to cut my communication off. All of these other things flourish on top of that foundation."
But the 'Diamonds' hitmaker admitted her other commitments have stopped her from focusing on her music as much as she'd like.
She told America's Vogue magazine: "I have been trying to get back into the studio.
"It's not like I can lock myself in for an extended amount of time, like I had the luxury of doing before. I know I have some very unhappy fans who don't understand the inside bits of how it works."
However, Rihanna knows she wants the album to be "reggae-infused.
She said: "I like to look at it as a reggae-inspired or reggae-infused album. It's not gonna be typical of what you know as reggae. But you're going to feel the elements in all of the tracks.
"Reggae always feels right to me. It's in my blood. It doesn't matter how far or long removed I am from that culture, or my environment that I grew up in; it never leaves. It's always the same high. Even though I've explored other genres of music, it was time to go back to something that I haven't really homed in on completely for a body of work."
While her ninth album doesn't yet have a release date, the 'Umbrella' hitmaker is already in the "discovery stage" for the follow-up.
She said: "We always went into the music this time around saying that we were going to do two different pieces of art.
"One was gonna be inspired by the music that I grew up listening to. And one was gonna be the evolution of where I'm going next with music."
