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      With Its Future at Stake, the Academy Tries to Fix the Oscars (Again)

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      The awards telecast has been losing viewers for years. New leadership wants to reverse that starting Sunday, and ensure the financial well-being of the organization.The stage design for the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday is more Doctor Strange modern and less Dowager Countess musty. That means plentiful video screens, including ones that cover the sides of the theater, with nary a Swarovski crystal curtain — the old standby — to be seen.Unlike last year, when eight categories were awarded during a nontelevised portion, all of the Oscars will be handed out live on air. To make the telecast interactive and help viewers better understand crafts categories, such as sound mixing and art direction, QR codes will appear before commercial breaks to direct viewers to internet vignettes about the nominees and behind-the-scenes footage and photos.To reinvigorate the red carpet preshow, Oscars organizers hired members of the Met Gala creative team. Expect much more star power, specialized lighting (to make a process that happens in daylight seem more like evening) and better integration with the theater’s entrance.But some of the most important changes — part of an urgent effort to help make the Academy Awards more relevant to young people and draw a broader international audience — involve things that most viewers won’t notice. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will post video of acceptance speeches in the six biggest categories in near real-time on TikTok and Facebook, and all speeches will quickly be posted on Twitter. In a first, Disney+ will stream the Oscars show live in parts of Europe. The academy has also sought out new marketing partners like Letterboxd, a social media site for movie fans (8.4 million members, most of them are ages 18 to 34), in a sad-but-true admission that it must convince people that they should care about the Oscars.“We didn’t have to before,” Janet Yang, the academy’s president, said in an interview at the organization’s Beverly Hills offices. “We could rest on our laurels and just let it carry itself.”Last year’s telecast drew 16.6 million viewers, with a spike in ratings coming after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesOne might respond with exasperation: You’re only now figuring that out? Perhaps the time to pull out all the stops to keep the Oscars vibrant was five years ago, when the telecast, for the first time, attracted less than 30 million people, a 20 percent decline from the previous year. Since then, the number of viewers for the Academy Awards has dropped another 37 percent, according to Nielsen’s data. About 16.6 million people watched “CODA” win the Oscar for best picture at the most recent ceremony, with viewership swelling after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage late in the show.The Run-Up to the 2023 OscarsThe 95th Academy Awards will be presented on March 12 in Los Angeles.Asian Actors: A record number of actors of Asian ancestry were recognized with Oscar nominations this year. But historically, Asian stars have rarely been part of the awards.Hong Chau Interview: In a conversation with The Times, the actress, who is nominated for her supporting role in “The Whale,” says she still feels like an underdog.Andrea Riseborough Controversy: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why the “To Leslie” star’s nod was controversial.The Making of ‘Naatu Naatu’: The composers and choreographer from the Indian blockbuster “RRR” explain how they created the propulsive sequence that is nominated for best song.But Ms. Yang can’t be held responsible. She was elected president only in August. The academy also has a new chief executive for the first time in 11 years; Bill Kramer, the former director of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, was appointed to that role in June. Together, Ms. Yang and Mr. Kramer have brought a blast of fresh air to the stuffy organization, working to improve transparency, calm a membership revolt over last year’s removal of several categories from the live Oscars telecast and shore up the academy’s wobbly finances.In the past, Ms. Yang said, “a lot of cultural institutions felt like they should be sitting on a hill, a little bit more protected, almost untouchable.” She added that the academy itself felt “ivory tower-ish,” but that it was now “a different time” and “a different culture.”ABC has exclusive rights to broadcast the Oscars ceremony until 2028 and provides the academy with about 80 percent of its annual revenue. Last year, Oscar-related revenue was $137.1 million, according to financial disclosures. Awards-related expenses totaled $56.8 million.The TV network generated an estimated $139 million across 70 commercials during last year’s show, according to Vivvix, which tracks ad spending. (To compare, ABC pulled in about $129 million across 56 ads in 2020.) A red-carpet preshow brought in an additional $16 million in advertising revenue.From left, Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, Steven Spielberg, Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Cruise are among this year’s nominees.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesTo secure a distribution contract of similar value when its deal with ABC expires, the academy must reverse viewership declines. A less lucrative deal could imperil some of the organization’s year-round activities, including film restoration. “This is so important to the livelihood and future of the organization that we better confront it,” Ms. Yang said.In many ways, however, the academy is hamstrung when it comes to reinventing the Oscars telecast.ABC and other traditional television networks are shadows of their former selves, with younger audiences in particular decamping en masse to streaming services. Some other awards shows are following them, notably the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which will stream live on Netflix starting next year. After an ethics, finance and diversity scandal, the Golden Globe Awards, long broadcast on NBC, are also looking for a new distribution partner.Many viewers have long complained that the Oscars ceremony is overlong, with groan-inducing banter between presenters adding to a feeling of bloat. Last year’s Academy Awards was three and a half hours, despite moving eight of the 23 awards off the live broadcast. (The offscreen acceptance speeches were recorded, edited and incorporated into the live show.) In the past, the Oscars telecast has run as long as four hours and 23 minutes. Jimmy Kimmel will return as the host on Sunday, having previously served as M.C. in 2017 and 2018, and he has been planning a traditional monologue.“We are working very hard to deliver the show on time with all disciplines honored,” Mr. Kramer said.Ariana DeBose won best supporting actress during last year’s Academy Awards, which was three and a half hours.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesLinda Ong, the chief executive of Cultique, a consulting firm in Los Angeles that advises companies on changing cultural norms, said that people were still interested in the award show’s winners and the things they had to say. The problem for the academy, she said, is that “people don’t feel the need to watch the show to be part of the conversation.”“They just watch some clips on social,” she added.Ms. Ong noted that, in a once-unthinkable move that speaks to the Oscars’ fading relevancy, the season finale of HBO’s hugely popular post-apocalyptic drama, “The Last of Us,” will broadcast head-to-head against the ceremony. “That’s a big cultural tell,” she said.The academy is hopeful that Nielsen’s ratings meters for the Oscars will tick upward on Sunday. Big musical stars, including Rihanna, are scheduled to perform their nominated songs; Lenny Kravitz will perform during the “In Memoriam” segment. Lady Gaga will be absent, though, with Oscars producers saying on Wednesday that she was too busy filming a movie to perform her nominated song from “Top Gun: Maverick.”The nominee pool for best picture has never before included more than one billion-dollar ticket seller, according to box office databases, and this year there are two. “Top Gun: Maverick” collected $1.5 billion, and “Avatar: The Way of Water” took in $2.3 billion. The front-runner for best picture, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” generated $104 million in ticket sales. (Viewership tends to increase when popular films are nominated.)But the academy says it’s not just about TV anymore — that relying on Nielsen’s numbers alone to assess relevancy is outdated, and that online chatter and streaming-service viewing should also be taken into account. “We have to rethink our success metrics,” Mr. Kramer said, noting that the Oscars will be available for viewing on Hulu the next day.Conversations on social media during and after award shows can be significant. Last month’s Grammy Awards, for instance, attracted about 12.6 million viewers. On the day of the ceremony and the next day, the Grammys generated about seven million mentions on Twitter, according to ListenFirst, an analytics company.If nothing else, the academy is hoping for a smooth show on Sunday. In the past, the academy started to plan for the Oscars as late as November. This time, planning started in June.“It should be about unity and celebrating this industry,” Mr. Kramer said. “People are still consuming movies. People love movies. Perhaps they’re doing it on streaming more than they did a few years ago. But our art form is as relevant as ever.” More

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      At the Super Bowl, Rihanna Returns to Music, Briefly

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      Moments after Rihanna stepped off the Super Bowl LVII halftime stage Sunday night at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., her representative confirmed what her performance had suggested: The singer is pregnant with her second child.It was, as pregnancy reveals go, not quite on the theatrical level of Beyoncé’s belly rub at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. But for Rihanna, who last year gave birth to her first child, it was a stroke of performance savvy nonetheless — maybe the only gesture that could outshine, and reframe, the show she had just given.Rihanna hasn’t released an album since “Anti” in 2016, and many in her fervent fan base took her willingness to perform at the Super Bowl this year as a sign that her return to music might be imminent. Perhaps she would announce a new single or album, or maybe a tour.Instead, she used one of pop music’s biggest stages to assert that despite all of that collective anticipation, she had other things to focus on: a private life to return to. So if her actual onstage delivery had been slightly weary, well, there were more important things to focus on.In 13 minutes, Rihanna casually performed snippets of 12 hits, universally known songs that don’t require much in the way of fluffing or bombast. The closest she came to frisson, to sass, to authority, to verve came a little after the halfway point of the set.Rihanna didn’t overemphasize movement, instead holding court at the center of her dancers.AJ Mast for The New York TimesJust after the familiar horn fusillade of “All of the Lights” boomed from the speakers, Rihanna took a compact from the outstretched hand of one of her dancers with her right hand, applied two dabs of powder — a nod to Fenty Beauty, which has been a bigger professional focus for her than music in recent years — and returned it before grabbing the microphone with her left hand from another dancer.Then she launched into the hook of “All of the Lights,” a decade-plus-old collaboration with Ye (formerly Kanye West), whose antisemitic remarks late last year have made him a pariah. She followed that song immediately with “Run This Town,” another collaboration with Ye (and Jay-Z).A quick cosmetics ad? Sure. An implicit statement of support for an embattled peer? Why not. Rihanna — one of the crucial pop hitmakers of the 21st century — needs the Super Bowl less than the Super Bowl needs her, and her performance was a master class in doing exactly enough. She treated it like many people approach their professional obligations when their personal life is calling: dutiful, lightly enthused, a little exhausted, looking to work the angles ever so slightly.The queen of nonchalance, Rihanna first appeared Sunday night on a stage floating above the 50-yard line (a gesture cribbed from Ye’s 2016 Saint Pablo tour) singing “Bitch Better Have My Money.” She was tethered to the platform, limiting her maneuvering, but even when she reached the ground she didn’t overemphasize dance, instead holding sturdy court at the center of 100-plus dancers, sharing in their movements but never outdoing them. During “Work,” she led them as if she were a tutor calling out moves but not participating in them.Rihanna’s hits are plentiful — she has charted more than 60 times on the Billboard Hot 100 — and they are varied. But there was no true thematic through line to this casual revue of a dozen deeply beloved songs. Mostly, she leaned into the up-tempo side of her catalog — “Where Have You Been,” “Only Girl (in the World)” — with nods to her Caribbean heritage on “Work” and “Rude Boy.” At the set’s end, she emphasized her big-picture, one-word-title smashes, “Umbrella” and “Diamonds,” which prioritize melodrama over feeling.Rihanna is many things — a new mother, a billionaire mogul in fashion and cosmetics, an astonishingly reliable pop star with a deep catalog. But she is not a current hitmaker. And she had not performed a show of this scale since 2016.So in its marketing, the Super Bowl amplified how it was a coup to land her most visible effort in years. During promotional teases, Apple Music’s Ebro Darden portentously intoned, “The wait. Is almost. Over.”In essence, the event was her appearance. The event was the event. There were no guests, despite the frequency and power of her collaborations. No costume changes, despite her standing as a fashion innovator — she wore an all-red outfit, removing and adding layers throughout.Rihanna performed part of her set on a stage floating above the field.AJ Mast for The New York TimesThough the performance was brief and hurried, it nevertheless felt slow. There was little variation in tone or energy, no aesthetic nods to the lightly themed set list. It was a routine designed to trigger long-honed pleasure centers, not ignite new fervor — a triumph of foregone conclusion.That Rihanna appeared at all is a testament to the ways in which the N.F.L. has been successful in papering — or performing — over its controversies. She declined to perform at the Super Bowl in 2019, an era in which turning down a gig on one of the world’s biggest stages — a retort to the N.F.L.’s response to Colin Kaepernick’s activism — felt political. But the involvement of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation with the league in the years following has remade the halftime show both musically and socioculturally.From an entertainment perspective, that’s been for the best. And for Rihanna, playing halftime is a milestone befitting the scope of her achievements. But her show wasn’t overtly political, or even particularly celebratory of her litany of hits. Instead, it served as something of a placeholder. She’d come to perform, yes. But she also has more pressing things to attend to. More

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      Rihanna Rep Confirms the Singer is Pregnant

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      Widespread speculation on social media during Rihanna’s halftime performance turned out to have merit: The singer, who starred in the Super Bowl halftime show, is pregnant, her representative, Amanda Silverman, confirmed on Sunday night.Rihanna, 34, performed for the first time in nearly four years, running through a quick medley of her hits. But, just as soon as fans applauded her return to the stage, Rihanna began to hint at her growing stomach in a ruby red Loewe jumpsuit and matching bustier, while singing fan favorites like “We Found Love,” “Diamonds” and “Only Girl (in the World),” occasionally rubbing and gesturing to her belly.the whole timeline afraid to ask if Rihanna is pregnant pic.twitter.com/KGQEhItzqx— Ira (@iramadisonthree) February 13, 2023
      This is not the first time Rihanna decided to make a splashy baby announcement: In January 2022, Rihanna and her partner, ASAP Rocky, announced they were pregnant through a series of photos taken by “fashion’s favorite paparazzi,” Miles Diggs, according to Vogue. Rihanna gave birth to a son in May.Fans have been waiting for a new Rihanna album since 2016 and pinned the start of a comeback with her halftime performance. Would she bring out a special guest? Release a new song? Announce a new tour? Instead, new rumors swirled.Once her publicist confirmed the news, reaction from fans was equal parts supportive and concerned. They expressed their admiration, but also some trepidation about how much longer they would need to wait for the next album.Caryn Ganz More

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      Songs from Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga Make the Oscar Shortlist

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      The academy also released shortlists for documentary, international feature and seven other categories.Will pop superstars like Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga take the stage at the Oscars next year? That possibility became more likely when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released its shortlist for best original song on Wednesday.The Rihanna song “Lift Me Up” (from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) made the cut, as did Swift’s “Carolina” (“Where the Crawdads Sing”) and Lady Gaga’s anthem “Hold My Hand” (“Top Gun: Maverick”).Other songs on the short list include Selena Gomez’s “My Mind & Me” from the documentary about her; the Weeknd tune “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” from the new “Avatar” sequel; and “New Body Rhumba,” the tune that LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy wrote for “White Noise.”Also on the list is the “Spirited” ditty “Good Afternoon” from the songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. They’re familiar names to Oscar voters: In 2017, they won best original song for “City of Stars” from “La La Land.” A nomination next month would be their fourth in this category.The shortlist for documentary feature included biographical studies like “All the Bloodshed and the Beauty” (about the photographer Nan Goldin) and “Moonage Daydream” (David Bowie), as well as historical examinations like “Descendant” (focused on the Clotilda, the last known ship to bring enslaved Africans to the United States) and “The Janes” (named after a collective that provided abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade).Meanwhile. the international feature shortlist is stacked with festival favorites from around the world, including “Decision to Leave,” the South Korean noir from Park Chan-wook; “Bardo” (Mexico), directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu; and Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” (France), based on a true story. Pakistan’s “Joyland” also made the cut: It features a relationship involving a transgender woman and was temporarily banned in that country.In all, the academy released shortlists for 10 categories — including visual effects, score, sound, and hair and makeup — in advance of the nominations on Jan. 24. Here are the shortlists for song, documentary feature and international feature. For the rest of the categories, go to oscars.org.Original Song“Time” from “Amsterdam”“Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” from “Avatar: The Way of Water”“Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”“This Is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”“Ciao Papa” from “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”“Til You’re Home” from “A Man Called Otto”“Naatu Naatu” from “RRR”“My Mind & Me” from “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me”“Good Afternoon” from “Spirited”“Applause” from “Tell It like a Woman”“Stand Up” from “Till”“Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick”“Dust & Ash” from “The Voice of Dust and Ash”“Carolina” from “Where the Crawdads Sing”“New Body Rhumba” from “White Noise”Documentary Feature“All That Breathes”“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”“Bad Axe”“Children of the Mist”“Descendant”“Fire of Love”“Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song”“Hidden Letters”“A House Made of Splinters”“The Janes”“Last Flight Home”“Moonage Daydream”“Navalny”“Retrograde”“The Territory”International FeatureArgentina, “Argentina, 1985”Austria, “Corsage”Belgium, “Close”Cambodia, “Return to Seoul”Denmark, “Holy Spider”France, “Saint Omer”Germany, “All Quiet on the Western Front”India, “Last Film Show”Ireland, “The Quiet Girl”Mexico, “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”Morocco, “The Blue Caftan”Pakistan, “Joyland”Poland, “EO”South Korea, “Decision to Leave”Sweden, “Cairo Conspiracy” More

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      Rihanna’s ‘Black Panther’ Ballad, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Ice Spice, Iggy Pop, SZA and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Rihanna, ‘Lift Me Up’Rihanna, who hasn’t released a solo song since her album “Anti” back in 2016, returns to music on the soundtrack for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The title of “Lift Me Up” has a gospel resonance, and the song is a hymnlike call for intimacy and security: “Keep me close, safe and sound.” Harp plucking — perhaps from a West African kora — and a string section support Rihanna and an African duet partner, the Nigerian star Tems (Temilade Openiyi). For all its structural clarity, the song doesn’t try to be a banger; it’s a prayer and a plea. JON PARELESSZA, ‘Shirt’“In the dark right now, feeling lost but I like it,” SZA sings on the moody, mid-tempo “Shirt,” a long-awaited single produced by Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins. Fans have been clamoring for a follow-up to SZA’s landmark 2017 album “Ctrl” with such intensity that a snippet of “Shirt” actually went viral on TikTok in 2020; last year SZA admitted that she followed fans’ lead in titling the song. The wildly cinematic, Dave-Meyers-directed music video features SZA and LaKeith Sanfield killing a bunch of people and a plot as jam-packed as an entire feature film, but perhaps the most exciting part is the wittily lyrical, acoustic-guitar-driven new song SZA previews over the clip’s credits. LINDSAY ZOLADZNakhane featuring Perfume Genius, ‘Do You Well’The South African crooner Nakhane and the American indie darling Perfume Genius have each crafted plenty of ballads that express the pathos of queer desire, but here, on the ecstatic “Do You Well,” they choose joy. “Stay in the light so I can see your face,” they sing together on the thumping disco number, that lyric serving as both a potent metaphor and a subtle joke about the deceptive lighting of the dance floor. Produced by Emre Türkmen with an assist from none other than Nile Rodgers, “Do You Well” is an immersive evocation of the mystery, romance and kinetic sweatiness of the club. ZOLADZIce Spice, ‘Bikini Bottom’The sub-two-minute “Bikini Bottom” is another brisk missive from the rising New York rap star Ice Spice, who sounds characteristically unbothered: “How can I lose if I’m already chose, like?” she raps in that already-signature flow that’s somewhere between a taunt and a whisper. RiotUSA’s beat is effectively minimalist; its only embellishment is a sped up, noodly riff that vaguely conjures — what else? — Squidward’s clarinet. ZOLADZIggy Pop, ‘Frenzy’At 75, Iggy Pop would be fully entitled to continue the kind of cranky, sepulchral, jazz-tinged musings he offered on his 2019 album, “Free.” Instead, he’s back to flat-out, buzz-bombing, hard-riffing rock with a new single, “Frenzy,” backed by a credentialed band including the producer Andrew Watt on guitar, Duff McKagan from Guns N’ Roses on bass and Chad Smith from Red Hot Chili Peppers on drums. Proudly foul-mouthed and convincingly irate, Pop lashes out in all directions, fully aware of his standing: “I’m sick of the freeze, I’m sick of disease/So gimme me a try before I [expletive] die.” PARELESFeeble Little Horse, ‘Chores’What’s up with all these young, equine-monikered bands totally nailing the sound and spirit of Gen X indie rock? Like Chicago’s precocious Horsegirl (who, true to form, released an endearingly reverent cover of the Minutemen classic “History Lesson Part 2” this week), the Pittsburgh quartet Feeble Little Horse know exactly how much noise belongs in their noise-pop, a balance they strike with ease on the shaggily infectious “Chores.” The vocalist Lydia Slocum sings, charismatically, of the in-house tensions of group living, like sparring over refrigerated leftovers and passive-aggressively asking roommates to pull their weight: “You need to do your chores, you need to clean the floors,” she sings on the chorus before adding, “Sorry.” The pigpen squall of guitars makes a gloriously greasy mess, but Slocum’s vocals cut through like vinegar. ZOLADZNatalia Lafourcade, ‘Mi Manera de Querer’The Mexican songwriter Natalia Lafourcade offers pure, innocent, gender-neutral love in “Mi Manera de Querer” (“My Way of Loving”) from her new album, “De Todas las Flores.” It’s a retro-flavored, big-band arrangement rooted in bossa nova and Cuban son, and she sings it with teasing confidence. Lafourcade promises love without makeup or filters, “as innocent as the chords of this song,” in a vintage setting that holds a modern outlook: “It doesn’t matter to me if you’re a man or a woman,” she lilts. “I see you as a being of light.” PARELESHolly Humberstone, ‘Can You Afford to Lose Me?’With stately, reverential keyboard chords and a whispery voice, Holly Humberstone delivers an ultimatum: “Go ahead and pack your bags/But once you’re gone you can’t come back.” As a choir musters behind her, she enumerates her partner’s failings and points out all that she’s done — “I was always there to pick up the pieces when you were a full-blown catastrophe.” Then quietly — probably against her better judgment — she offers one last chance. PARELESCaroline Rose, ‘Love/Lover/Friend’Caroline Rose has traversed multiple styles since her 2012 debut album, from countryish roots-rock to gleaming electronic pop. None of them forecast the ghostly and then overwhelming “Love/Lover/Friend.” Her lyrics start by listing what she’s not — someone’s mother, keeper, debt collector, puppeteer, rag doll — in a diaphanous tangle of acoustic-guitar arpeggios. Then, as she announces “I am your love,” a string orchestra surges in, and further avowals — “I am your lover,” “I am your friend” — summon massed, Balkan-tinged vocals, as if that revelation is both ecstatic and humbling. PARELES More

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      Rihanna to Perform at Super Bowl Halftime

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      The singer’s highly anticipated return to the stage will include the first halftime show under the N.F.L.’s new sponsorship deal with Apple Music.Rihanna will perform at the Super Bowl in Glendale, Ariz., on Feb. 12 as the N.F.L. enters the first year of a new deal with Apple Music as primary sponsor of the halftime show, replacing Pepsi.It is the first scheduled return to the stage for an artist who last performed publicly at the Grammy Awards in early 2018, and whose most recent solo album, “Anti,” was released in January 2016.“We’re excited to partner with Rihanna, Roc Nation and the N.F.L. to bring music and sports fans a momentous show,” said Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president for Apple Music and Beats.The announcement is an about-face for the singer, who was among the artists who rebuffed invitations to perform on football’s biggest stage in support of Colin Kaepernick, the former 49ers quarterback who has been unable to find a new team since he became a free agent in March 2017. Kaepernick accused the league of blackballing him because of his kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality toward Black people.Facing player protests and an impending loss of cachet for the show, the N.F.L. in 2019 signed on Jay-Z and Roc Nation, the rapper’s entertainment and sports company, as “live music entertainment strategist,” to consult on the Super Bowl halftime show and contribute to the league’s activism campaign, Inspire Change.Rihanna is both managed by Roc Nation and signed to its record label, according to the company’s website.Last February’s halftime show in Inglewood, Calif., was the third under Roc Nation’s guidance. The hometown rap icons Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar and the singer Mary J. Blige delivered well-regarded performances which book-ended that of the rapper Eminem. In what appeared to be a reference to Kaepernick’s protest, Eminem knelt after performing “Lose Yourself” in a move that was anticipated by N.F.L. officials who had seen him do it in rehearsals.In the years since Rihanna’s last album release, she has appeared as a guest on a small handful of singles by other artists — including DJ Khaled’s “Wild Thoughts,” which hit No. 2 on the Billboard chart in 2017 — and intermittently teased new music of her own, though none has materialized.As a result, what would be Rihanna’s ninth studio album has taken on a near-mythic quality among fans — who regularly refer to it as “R9” — even as the singer has focused instead on her business empire, which includes the Savage x Fenty lingerie brand and skin care and makeup lines that have contributed to her $1.7 billion net worth, as estimated in 2021 by Forbes.Earlier this year, Rihanna had her first child with the rapper ASAP Rocky.In a 2019 interview with T Magazine, the singer of hits like “Umbrella” and “We Found Love” said the new album would, as long rumored, be a reggae project, while joking about the fan-given name. “I’m about to call it that probably, ’cause they have haunted me with this ‘R9, R9, when is R9 coming out?’ How will I accept another name after that’s been burned into my skull?”More recently, Rihanna told Vogue, “I’m looking at my next project completely differently from the way I had wanted to put it out before,” adding: “It’s authentic, it’ll be fun for me, and it takes a lot of the pressure off.” More