Following her history-making Super Bowl performance, Rihanna is now lifting the Oscars in 2023.
The Grammy-winning singer has confirmed that he will perform “Lift Me Up” from the Oscar-nominated film “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” at the 95th Academy Awards. The live broadcast will be March 12 on ABC.
Academy Awards executive producers and showrunners Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner announced Rihanna’s planned appearance at the Jimmy Kimmel-hosted ceremony. More talent will be announced in the coming weeks ahead of the annual awards show.
“Lift Me Up” features music by Tems, Rihanna, “Wakanda Forever” writer-director Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson, with lyrics by Tems and Coogler. The ballad was nominated in the Original Song category, marking Rihanna’s first Oscar nomination. A nine-time Grammy Award winner, Rihanna has eight multi-platinum albums and 14 number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100.
Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up” co-songwriter Tems said in a 2022 press release: “After speaking with Ryan and hearing the arrangement for the film and the song, I wanted to write something that showed a warm embrace from all the people I’ve lost in my life. I tried to imagine how it would feel to be able to sing to them now and express how much I miss them. Rihanna is an inspiration to me, so it’s an honor to hear her cover this song.”
Rihanna’s last full-length release, ‘Anti’, was released in 2016. Since its release, Rihanna has focused on her Fenty empire and become a certified billionaire mogul. The “Take a Bow” singer, pregnant with her second child, performed at the Super Bowl LVII halftime show at State Farm Stadium in Arizona on Feb. 12, exactly one month before the Academy Awards.
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Angela Bassett. IndieWire’s awards editor Marcus Jones predicted that BAFTA winner Kerry Condon and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” star Stephanie Hsu would be among the frontrunners in the category alongside Bassett.
The 95th Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, March 12 at the Dolby Theater in Ovation Hollywood and will be broadcast live on ABC and in more than 200 territories worldwide.
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