'Breakin’ Dishes' is How Teens Discover Rihanna?

According to Spotify data shared with PAPER, global streams of “Breakin’ Dishes” have spiked more than 135% since July, with nearly 1.7 million listeners discovering Rihanna through the song in just the past two months. The track just scored its biggest streaming day ever on September 18, the same day it reached No. 32 on Spotify’s Global Top 50.

Why now, though? The “TikTok resurgence” phenomenon hits randomly for artists who were big in the 2000s. Remember Gaga’s “Bloody Mary” moment a couple years ago? The difference here, though, is that Rihanna hasn’t released an album since 2016. She’s competing with current streaming-era pop giants without even lifting a finger, proving that Rihanna is the hitmaker still.

The TikTok comments tell the story best. One 16-year-old wrote: “I was born in 2008, I’m still finding songs from around that time that I like because I didn’t have Spotify until a couple years ago.” Others pointed out that “we had the best music back then that no one appreciated” and that it’s fun to hear “loads of noughties tunes re-entering dance music” now. In short, what feels like nostalgia bait to millennials is brand-new discovery for Gen Z and Alpha — a generational hand-off happening in real time.

It also underscores a broader shift: TikTok has flattened the timeline of pop. Sometimes it’s a sync that does the work (Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” via Stranger Things, Sophie Ellis-Bextor's "Murder on the Dancefloor" via Saltburn.) But more often, like with “Breakin’ Dishes,” it’s pure fan energy that yanks a deep cut out of dormancy and back into the charts.

The takeaway? Eighteen years later, Rihanna doesn’t need to announce an album to break the internet. All it takes is a little chaos in the kitchen.

Image via Getty