Rihanna's gearing up for R9, her ninth album and her first since 2016's Anti.

It's said to have a dancehall reggae vibe and RiRi should have her choice of collaborators for the project. However, she lost the chance to work with a giant of that genre when her peeps asked Shaggy to audition to be on the album.

"They approached me for the Rihanna project, yeah. There’s a lot of great people involved, but for me, I didn’t need to audition to be on the record. I’ll leave that to younger guys," he told the Daily Star. "But from what I hear, it should be good.”

Shaggy's been keeping busy lately. He dropped the collaborative album 44/876 with Sting in 2018 and the solo album Wah Gwaan?! last May.

Should the 51-year old have to audition to play with Rihanna?