Rihanna Lends Voice to Coldplay Album

Rihanna has guested on hits for hip-hop’s biggest stars including Eminem, Jay-Z, and Kanye West, and now the pop starlet is set to rock with Coldplay.

The 23-year-old singer duets with frontman Chris Martin on “Princess of China,” one of the tracks off the band’s new album Mylo Xyloto.

Martin said he was nervous about approaching RiRi for the collaboration. “The album is designed as a whole piece. It has boy and girl lead characters and top of our list for the girl part was Rihanna… but it took a while to pluck up the courage to ask her,” he told The Sun.

They met at Coldplay’s New Year’s show with Jay-Z in Las Vegas in January. “We did a show in Las Vegas and I met her and said, ‘Do you think there’s any chance?’ I was very Hugh Grant-like and spluttering about it.

“She has such an amazing voice and it’s so different to mine. When the vocal happened I thought, ‘Wow, you sound different,’ but I think that’s also because she was singing a different song to what we are used to hearing from her and it is written by a bloke from Devon.”

Coldplay’s fifth album Mylo Xyloto is due October 24.