Rihanna Snags Her First Academy Award Nom Ahead Of Anticipated Super Bowl Performance

This is Rihanna’s year! 2023 has only begun and the singer is already doing the most. First the Super Bowl, now, an Oscar nomination!

The singer just started singing again and she has achieved goals, a freaking Academy Awards nomination. It’s the first-ever Oscar nomination for the 34-year-old who hasn’t released new music of her own in years.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was the film that pulled RiRi out of her no-music-making slump. She wrote and recorded a song for the sequel film to Marvel’s 2016 hit Black Panther starring Chadwick Boseman.

The song, titled “Lift Me Up” is in a sense tribute to Boseman who was unable to reprise his role as the Black Panther after passing away from cancer. The song has already topped the charts and was a complete success with fans of the film, but Rihanna, nor her fans would have ever assumed it would get an Oscar nom.

The new song has been nominated in the Best Original Song category at the March 12 show, she shares the songwriting credit with director and screenwriter, Ryan Coogler, composer Ludwig Göransson who has won his own Oscar already, and Nigerian singer Tems who has been cleaning up awards all over the music circuit.

Rihanna has some stiff competition; she is up against “Applause” written by Diane Warren and sung by Sofia Carson from the documentary Tell It Like A Woman. Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” for Maverick: Top Gun; “Naatu Naatu” from Rahul Sipligunj, Kaala Bhairava, and M.M for the film RRR, this song also won at the Golden Globes for best song.

And finally, “This Is A Life from David Byrne” from the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The “Umbrella” singer’s toughest competition in this category is “Naatu Naatu”. The Bollywood song cleaned up at the Emmys and for good reason. It was the life of the epic film RRR a what-if film about two revolutionists who fight against British colonists, this film explores what would happen if they met on their separate quests for freedom.

This film has its own stake in the game, it’s the first song from an Indian film to receive a best song Oscar nomination. So, yeah, a very big deal. It has been described as “infectious”, “heart-pounding” and a “fan-favorite” by various movie reviewers.

Compared to Rihanna’s lonesome and sad song, they are really two songs that can’t be compared which makes the competition juicier. Rihanna has been making the rounds this awards season thanks to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever so whether she wins or not we should just be happy we are getting so much RiRi face time.

Let’s not forget that awards season isn’t the end-all for Rihanna, she has a huge show ahead of her, the Super Bowl halftime show. The singer agreed to perform and ever since the news dropped fans have been buzzing with excitement.

Every other day Rihanna has been trending for one reason or another we can only hope that after all this buzz dies down, she graces her fans with an album because we don’t know how much more of this they can take.