In a way, it’s fitting that “I Can’t Breathe” — H.E.R.’s Grammy-winning song that, as much as any other, has become an anthem for the Black Lives Matter movement — was written and performed by a woman who declares that she is “equally Filipino as I am Black.”
A powerful, slow and mournful hymn with a rhythm that owes more than a little to Bill Withers’ classic “Ain’t No Sunshine,” it is an impassioned cry that begins as a lament and ends defiantly, with H.E.R.’s delivery shifting from anguished soul to stentorian speechifying. It’s a sentiment of outrage, desperation and exasperation against the senselessness of racism, from an artist who is a member of three of the most oppressed groups of human beings in American history: African Americans, Asians and women.
Apart from 2014’s “Something to Prove,” a final song as Gabi Wilson that she essentially dismisses now, it would be nearly five years before H.E.R.’s first full release would emerge. She credits Robinson and former MBK exec Suzette Williams with giving her the room to grow. “They saw things in me that I didn’t even see in myself,” she says. “I was learning the business just as much as the music, and also figuring out who I was gonna become as a woman.
“I’m thankful I was able to go to school, but honestly, I’d be sitting in class like, ‘I can’t wait to get back to New York and work toward my future,’ she says. “Everybody else was thinking about the weekend, but I was thinking about the next ten years.”
Robinson recalls, “I kept her under wraps until Jody Gerson [now chairman-CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group] said — and I give her props for this — ‘Jeff, you’ve had her in that studio for years, musically lifting weights,’” he laughs. “The only way you’re gonna know if she’s as good as we think is to put out the music.’ And I said, ‘You know, you’re right.’”
Thus, H.E.R. emerged, in silhouette over a light-blue background, with the seven-track EP “Vol. 1” (which was later combined with “Vol. 2” and other songs to create her eponymous debut album) in September 2016. The music, the silhouette and her name were dramatic reinventions; in every sense, H.E.R.’s past was rendered prelude.
“Honestly, the reason I wanted to be H.E.R. is because I felt people tended to focus on the looks of things instead of music — listening with their eyes and not their ears,” she says. “It was a social media time of the whole package: ‘This is what an artist should be; this is what a woman should be.’ So when I first released music, I wanted to be a silhouette — these truthful stories were what I wanted to show, not me.
“It isn’t a persona; it’s not something that I think I have to turn on. It’s me: my true self.”
The initial plan was to let things build organically, “dropping the EP and then touring and kinda letting it spread by word of mouth instead of doing a major push,” she says. But before long, she had social media cosigns from Rihanna, Issa Rae, Taraji P. Henson and two Jenners.
Yet the moment H.E.R. says she knew her music was truly connecting occurred during the first show on her first major tour, opening for label mate Bryson Tiller in 2017. Despite all the years of practice and performing, “I was really nervous: ‘People aren’t gonna know who I am; this will be me getting used to touring,’” she recalls. “But at the first show we did in Atlanta, a majority of the crowd was singing the lyrics to all my songs — I was so blown away. And then doing meet-and-greets on my own tour is when I realized that people are really listening, telling me their own stories about their connection to my music and taking different meanings from it.”
Williams adds: “At those shows, I could barely hear her on certain songs because the audience was singing so loud.”
The Recording Academy was also cheering: It nominated H.E.R. in five 2018 Grammy Awards categories. She won two.
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Early this year, after another album, several singles and tours, and countless TV and web appearances, H.E.R. was featured at three of the highest-profile events possible for any musician — in just 10 weeks, no less. In February, she performed “America the Beautiful” at Super Bowl LV (which itself was a sly commentary, coming from the woman who wrote and sang “I Can’t Breathe”), and then won two more Grammys and an Academy Award. Even for an awards show veteran of her stature and track record, the Oscars were a new frontier.
“My mom was my date,” she recalls. “Angela Bassett was sitting next to us, and my mom was excited to meet her and Tyler Perry and all these people. I was just happy to be there. I almost forgot that I had a chance to win.”
But she’d certainly remembered by the time her moment came. “They played the clips [from the films], my heart was beating fast, and they announced my name … and everything stopped for a hot second, and there was craziness going on in my head,” she recalls in a rush. “I’m thinking of the doubt I’d had, I’m thinking of my mom sitting next to me, I’m thinking of the movie and how important it was — everything was going through my mind at once.
“And then … I didn’t prepare a speech,” she sighs. “So I was like, ‘Oh crap, I have to go up there and say something.’”
Even as one of the most ubiquitous faces and voices of the past few and probably the next few months — owing not only to the new album but also her starring appearance in a sunny Old Navy ad — H.E.R. is, as always, working toward the next thing to reveal.
“There is so much I want to do. People don’t really get to see my comedic and fun side, except for when I’m impersonating my aunt,” she laughs. “But I definitely want to do a lot more voice-overs, and comedy, but also some serious roles —” she says before catching herself. “I’m trying to do it all, I know. Whatever it is, one thing at a time. I’m gonna get there.”
But is it all too much too soon? What happens after all of your dreams come true? Robinson turns reflective. “Before [‘Vol. 1’] came out, I told her to make a mood board of everything she wanted to accomplish. She did all of them, so now she’s made a second mood board. One of them is acting — she wants to be a top musician and actress. She’s a hard worker, but there will come a time: What’s next?” he concludes. “We’re going to have to figure that one.”
But until that day, there is still plenty to reveal, and plenty to keep hidden — including, on occasion, her superpowers. When walking around her Brooklyn neighborhood, “people don’t recognize me without my glasses,” H.E.R. says. “Sometimes I feel like Clark Kent.”
Styling: Wouri Vice/The Montgomery Group; Hair: Nina Monique; Makeup: Marissa Vossen; Cover (green dress); Dress: Greta Constantine; Glasses:Bonnie Clyde; Look 1 (black jacket): Dress, Jacket and Shirt: GIVENCHY; Shoes: Giuseppi Zanotti; Sunglasses:Valentino; Ring: Sheryl Jones; Look 2 (sweatshirt): Custom embroidered hoodie: Griggs Brothers; Glasses: Bonnie Clyde; Look 3 (Stripe Dress): Dress: Christopher John Rogers; Glasses: Valentino; Look 4 (green dress): Dress: Issey Miyake; Boots: Giuseppi Zanotti
