H.E.R.

Since her initial EP connected with listeners in 2016, H.E.R. has ranked among the most honored figures in R&B for both her emotionally open yet confident romantic ballads and her incisive protest material. The singer and songwriter deploys her rich vocals to deliver lyrics that balance imagery with clarity, moves fluidly into rap delivery, and contributes guitar work and production. Her three major projects—H.E.R. (2017), I Used to Know Her (2019), and Back of My Mind (2021)—each contain platinum-certified singles such as “Focus,” “Could’ve Been,” and “Damage.” Four Grammys stand to her credit, including Song of the Year for “I Can’t Breathe” (2020). Her original track “Fight for You” (2021) for the Judas and the Black Messiah soundtrack brought her an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Frequently sought for cross-genre work, she has added to her catalog through co-writing and featured vocals on Daniel Caesar’s “Best Part,” YG’s “Slide,” and Skip Marley’s “Slow Down.”

The Bay Area native first appeared in September 2016 under the deliberately opaque name H.E.R., an abbreviation for Having Everything Revealed. RCA issued the seven-track H.E.R., Vol. 1 with modest marketing, yet fellow label artists Alicia Keys and Bryson Tiller helped spread awareness via social platforms. An early cover of Drake’s “Jungle” drew further notice. Written with Justin Love and co-produced by Darhyl Camper, Jr., the trap-inflected yearning ballad “Focus” became her breakthrough single, reaching number 45 on Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop chart and securing the first of many RIAA gold and platinum awards. H.E.R. Vol. 2 followed in June 2017 in a comparable vein. Four months later the two EPs were merged, expanded, and issued as the full-length H.E.R.; one newly added track was the multi-platinum “Best Part,” a duet with Daniel Caesar originally featured on his album Freudian.

Further joint efforts arrived in mid-2018 with “This Way,” recorded alongside Khalid for the Superfly soundtrack. That August she released I Used to Know Her: The Prelude, which debuted at number one on the R&B/hip-hop chart and number 20 on the Billboard 200, propelled by the Bryson Tiller duet “Could’ve Been.” I Used to Know Her, Pt. 2 appeared in November and included the single “Hard Place.” By year’s end she had received five Grammy nominations: Album of the Year and Best R&B Album for H.E.R., Best R&B Performance for “Best Part,” Best R&B Song for “Focus,” and Best New Artist. At the February ceremony she claimed Best R&B Album and Best R&B Performance. Appearances on tracks by Chris Brown, Ella Mai, and Ed Sheeran helped set the stage for the August 2019 release of I Used to Know Her, which compiled the prior EPs with new material. Shortly afterward she joined YG on the multi-platinum “Slide” and Skip Marley on “Slow Down,” prompting five additional Grammy nominations, among them Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance for “Could’ve Been,” Song of the Year and Record of the Year for “Hard Place,” and Album of the Year for the parent album.

Although H.E.R. issued only two lead singles in 2020, both made an impact: the Juneteenth-timed protest song “I Can’t Breathe,” released amid nationwide demonstrations against police brutality, and the slow jam “Damage,” built on Herb Alpert’s Jam & Lewis-produced “Making Love in the Rain” and later Grammy-nominated. Guest spots included Jhené Aiko’s platinum-certified “B.S.” and Toni Braxton’s “Gotta Move On,” while she also fronted Robert Glasper’s “Better Than I Imagined” alongside Meshell Ndegeocello. “I Can’t Breathe” and “Better Than I Imagined” each won Grammys, for Song of the Year and Best R&B Song respectively. In 2021 the Grammy-nominated “Fight for You,” which closed Judas and the Black Messiah, received the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Additional appearances came on Jazmine Sullivan’s Heaux Tales and DJ Khaled’s Khaled Khaled, followed by the Chris Brown collaboration “Come Through.” June brought Back of My Mind, her first proper studio album; it featured “Slide,” “Damage,” and “Come Through” alongside “Bloody Waters” with Thundercat and Kaytranada, “Find a Way” with Lil Baby, and the title track with Ty Dolla $ign, debuting at number six on the Billboard 200. Throughout the first half of 2022 she appeared on recordings by Chris Brown, Saweetie, and Mary J. Blige before contributing a solo version of Sly & the Family Stone’s “Dance to the Music” to the Minions: The Rise of Gru soundtrack. “The Journey” arrived in 2023.