Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 01/06/2012 at 10:47 AM News

The Popdust Files: jay-z, kanye west, rihanna, talk that talk, upcoming singles

“Talk That Talk” is an obvious single choice off Rihanna’s album of the same—a radio-ready banger with a guest verse from professional life-winner Jay-Z that’s guaranteed to get some cross-platform airplay, and has already reached #31 on the charts based on downloads alone. (We’d have preferred “Where Have You Been” or especially “Cockiness (Love It),” though we’re not holding our breath for the latter.) So Rihanna announcing her sixth album’s title track as its third single—allegedly due to a fan vote, though we’d like to see what, if any, tabulation actually went on with that one—is hardly a surprise.

What’s a little more surprising, is that the Australian Chart News report that this piece of news comes from also lists Kanye West as a guest artist on the song. Kanye had no clear involvement on the song’s original version, so perhaps the single release will feature some new Kanye verse (like Katy Perry’s “E.T.”) that will undoubtedly feature on the Talk That Talk deluxe edition. Either that, or it was just a misprint (slash wishful thinking) on the part of a writer who had listened to Watch the Throne one too many times. Time will tell, but we’re certainly hoping we can see the “Run This Town” dream team reunited for another run.