Rihanna Teases Impending ‘Anti’ With Cryptic Ads, Mobile Site
Throughout Sunday night’s American Music Awards, mysterious Samsung Mobile ads appeared to trumpet the imminent arrival of Rihanna‘s upcoming LP Anti. While concrete details have yet to be announced, the ads direct mobile device users to new website AntiDiaRY.com, which opens a world of creepy clips and cryptic clues for fans to unlock on the journey to Anti; one of the Twitter handles associated with the game is @IAmTheKeyHolder.
The centerpiece of Samsung’s barrage of ads Sunday night was a minute-long commercial where Rihanna and a pair of children play in an all-white cabin while an ominous piano is heard in the background. The kids then lure Rihanna down a hallway – where she picks up a key tagged with “R8,” the pet name for her upcoming eighth album – and toward a darkened doorway. The two children then morph into the crowned child on the Roy Nachum-created Anti cover.
Unlock the mystery. #ANTIdiaRY https://t.co/ddHbXXa8dd
— Samsung Mobile US (@SamsungMobileUS) November 23, 2015
As Rihanna revealed at her Anti art reveal party in Los Angeles, she is the child on the album cover. “This is me as a little girl. I brought this one to [Nachum] and he really reinterpreted it his own way with exactly the message that I wanted,” she said.
“The crown over the eyes is a symbol for the music,” Nachum told Rolling Stone. “Here, I painted the young Rihanna bringing something new. She saw my work and I got a phone call that she wanted to collaborate on the cover to her album.”
While no details of Anti‘s arrival have been confirmed, the buzz is that the album will debut on Samsung devices – a perk of Rihanna’s $25 million deal with the electronics giant – as well as Tidal, the Jay Z-led streaming service where Rihanna is among the all-star co-owners.