Rihanna’s ‘ANTI’ is first album from black female artist to spend 200 weeks on Billboard 200 Chart

ANTI is the eighth studio album by the Barbados Goddess Rihanna. It was released on January 28, 2016, through Westbury Road and Roc Nation. This week Billboard announced that Rihanna was the first black female artist to have an album stay on the charts for over 200 weeks.

Rihanna collaborated with producers including Jeff Bhasker, Boi-1da, DJ Mustard, Hit-Boy, Brian Kennedy, Timbaland and No I.D. to achieve her desired sound. The efforts resulted in a departure from Rihanna’s previous dance and club music genres and created a primarily pop, hip hop soul and R&B album, with elements of dancehall and soul. The producers incorporated dark, sparsely layered, minimalist song structures, with most of Anti’s lyrics dealing with the complexities of romantic love and self-assurance.

The album peaked at number one on the US Billboard 200, moving 166,000 equivalent-album units in its first full-tracking week, and after two days of its release was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as a result of Samsung purchasing one million copies of the album in advance as a free download. It was promoted with four singles, including the single “Work”, featuring Canadian rapper Drake, which peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 becoming Rihanna’s fourteenth number one song on the chart. The album is currently four time platinum.