Despite not releasing a new album in the past decade, Rihanna just became the first woman in the history of the music industry to surpass 200 million RIAA singles certifications. And she’s third on the all-time list, topped only by Drake and Morgan Wallen.
Her total now stands at 200.5 million units. Drake holds the top spot with 277.5 million, and Wallen is below him at 215 million.
In the pre-digital era, the RIAA — the trade organization which certifies gold, platinum, and diamond sales and streaming awards — simply tabulated the number of physical singles that were shipped to retailers. Once iTunes came online, it measured paid downloads of songs. And in the modern age, it counts 150 on-demand streams as the equivalent of a single purchase of a digital music file. That explains why the chart is topped by streaming-age superstars like Drake, Wallen, Rihanna, Kanye West, Beyoncé, and Luke Combs, while titans of past eras like Queen and Michael Jackson are far below.
But the chart-toppers are all active recording artists. Rihanna hasn’t released an album or toured since 2016, though she did play the Super Bowl halftime show in 2023, and performs at the occasional private event. She also recorded “Lift Me Up” for the 2022 movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and “Friends of Mine” for 2025’s Smurfs. She managed to surpass the 200 million single certification mark simply on the durability of her catalog. Year after year, classics like “Umbrella,” “Only Girl (In the World),” “Don’t Stop the Music,” and “We Found Love” rack up astronomical numbers.
Rihanna has been slowly working on her ninth album for several years. She initially told fans it was going to be “reggae-inspired,” but later backed away from that. “There’s no genre now,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in 2025. “That’s why I waited. Every time, I was just like, ‘No, it’s not me. It’s not right. It’s not matching my growth. It’s not matching my evolution. I can’t do this. I can’t stand by this. I can’t perform this for a year on tour.’”
Once the record finally comes out, it could put her in position to surpass Drake and Wallen and have more single certifications than any artist in history.
From Rolling Stone US
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