It turns out that Rihanna's vocals on "Believe It" off of PARTYNEXTDOOR's freshly dropped album, PARTYMOBILE, was a last minute addition, as the part was originally occupied by PND's girlfriend. PND had been building up to his new album for a hot minute before finally releasing it to the quarantined masses on Friday. While the project, which marks his first body of work since his 2017 EP, Seven Days, and his first studio album since PartyNextDoor 3 in 2016, was an exciting treat on its own, one feature in particular served as an unexpected surprise. Just before PARTYMOBILE was placed in our hands, it was rumoured that Rihanna would be making an appearance on the album, and wouldn't you know, the practically retired singer did indeed have a minor part on the tenth track, "Believe It."
Fans were admittedly a little disappointed that, after waiting so long (since Rih's rap verse on N.E.R.D.'s "Lemon" back in 2017, to be exact) for a crumb of musical content from the Bad Gal, she only sang a total of five words. However, the Navy is honestly lucky they got to hear anything from Rih at all, since she almost wasn't included on the song. Originally, the placeholder vocals for Rihanna's eventual part were actually recorded by PND's unnamed girlfriend.
Not only that, but PND's team didn't even receive Rihanna's vocals until Monday of this week, giving them roughly three days to finalize the track with Rih on it. As a result of this last-minute scrambling, two of the track's producers, NinetyFour and Bizzness Boi, decided not to ask PND to send them a preview of "Believe It" in its final form before it was released on streaming services. "You're a young kid waiting for that present, you wake up, and it's just there," NinetyFour said of the reasoning behind their decision. Well, regardless of how small her part is or how last minute the decision was, we're glad to have even a sliver of new Rihanna music.