Rumors have been swirling for weeks that Rihanna and Kanye West are hitting the road together,
and Live Nation in Finland let it slip yesterday that the plans are, in fact, confirmed, with a live date
set for July 25 in Estonia. We had a feeling a tour was in the works: Kanye is executive producing
Rih’s upcoming album and the two have been heavily promoting their joint collaboration withPaul
McCartney, the country-tinged ballad “FourFiveSeconds.” If their past collaborations are an
indication of future greatness, expect this tour to be massive.
There’s something untouchable about Jay Z, Rihanna, and Kanye teaming up for one song—only Beyoncé could’ve made this track better. Kanye coproduced 2009’s “Run This Town,” and the beat is militant, even belligerent. “We basically run this town,” Jay Z said in an interview after the track’s release. “It’s myself, Rihanna, and Kanye. It’s pretty much it.”
Rihanna took a break from making her own music videos to star in one of West’s, and she’s as charismatic a silent actor as she is a singer. In the black-and-white clip for “Paranoid,” from West’s 2008 auto-tuned masterpiece 808s & Heartbreak, Rih is perfect as a noirish femme fatale, driving recklessly down a dark road and flashing those bright eyes straight at the camera.
It takes a special woman to bring Kanye and his sometime-rival Drake onto one stage, but that’s precisely what Rihanna accomplished at the NBA All-Star game halftime show in 2011.
Though the only videos of the show are grainy, Rihanna and Kanye’s performance at a pre–Super Bowl party in January looked to be electric. The pair cycled through some of each other’s biggest hits, and gave the best preview yet of what to expect from their 2015 tour.
