HER is a woman of many talents, and she’s looking to expand to a different part of the entertainment world. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the singer will appear in her first Hollywood film, namely director Blitz Bazawule’s new adaptation of the musical version of The Color Purple. HER will play Squeak, who progresses from a juke joint waitress to an aspiring singer. HER is working with the filmmakers to possibly create an original song for the movie as well. As for Bazawule, he was also the filmmaker behind the Beyonce-led film Black Is King.
Corey Hawkins from In The Heights will also star in the film. Oprah Winfrey, who earned an Oscar nomination for the 1985 (non-musical) film version will produce the film through her Harpo Films banner while Steven Spielberg, who directed that movie , is also listed as a producer. The Color Purple is set for a release on December 20, 2023.
While the film will be HER’s first acting role, it will continue the recent success she’s had in the film industry. Earlier this year, she landed her first Oscar for “Fight For You,” which appeared in the Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Steinfield-led film Judas And The Black Messiah. The win brought her halfway to the coveted EGOT award as she already has four Grammys to her name.
People like to throw the term “industry plant” around at artists that encounter rapid success. Oftentimes these musicians exist in the major label system. And, often they are women. What exactly the term means has dozens of interpretations, but can generally be narrowed down to an artist having an unfair advantage in the music biz, where they are propped up for accolades they do not deserve, getting big looks despite not having the fanbase that should be necessary for such success.
While these sorts of criticisms have a myriad of issues, one of the biggest faults is that they tend to explain away something someone doesn’t understand (or doesn’t attempt to understand) as the product of conspiracy. If you look around at the news in just about any field, this tends to be a running theme around how things are discussed on the internet. Rarely do people actually take the time to see how things work for themselves.
For HER, the Bay Area renaissance woman who has faced such criticisms for the last half-decade, the chance to disengage with online discourse was available on Friday night at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Performing the first of two nights in front of a capacity crowd of more than 16,000, HER took an audience of young and old across her many influences, where classical, jazz, R&B, rock, spoken word poetry, and more all made appearances over the course of two-and-a-half hours of music. Backed by conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic as well as her own more traditional band backing set-up complete with a quartet of backing singers, it was a moment where no amount of industry favors could do much good. The Hollywood Bowl is an unforgiving stage that’s been conquered by the biggest and brightest stars of music. And HER spent every moment showing how much she belonged there.
Dustin Downing on behalf of the LA Phil
The evening’s opening gave attendees that frequent the Bowl for contemporary fare a chance to see how the venue functions otherwise. Dudamel led the Phil through a couple of opening numbers, notably both originally by Black composers, showing off the majesty of LA’s premier orchestra. And then without much warning, the music gently transitioned into Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues,” with HER’s unmistakable, disembodied vocals appearing before she made her way to the stage. As she traversed a sampling of material new and old with the orchestra, HER made it known that she’d never in her wildest dreams imagined performing with the LA Philharmonic, another entry to a resume that began as a child prodigy and has included wins at the Oscars and Grammys, support from artists like Rihanna and Usher, and appearances in major national ad campaigns.
HER’s bona fides are abundant, but even so, it’s not surprising that she felt the need to point them out on Friday night. When people spend as much time telling you you don’t deserve something, it’s up to you to highlight your own CV. Still, when she pointed out her own Oscar win or a song’s No. 1 status, it never came across as HER having a chip on her shoulder. It didn’t even come across as having something to prove. No, as she made her way through some of the best tunes of the last five years — including the lively “Fight For You,” the showstopping “Hold On,” and especially on what she called “the wedding song of 2021” “Best Part” — HER’s brand of confidence was anchored by grace. You couldn’t help root for the artist whose trajectory had been heading for this moment since childhood.
HER spent her final hour without the orchestra, showing that superb songwriting and musicianship are not mutually exclusive. She slapped the bass, played guitar behind her head, showed rock star swagger with covers of Lenny Kravitz and Queen, and even played piano and the frickin’ drums to Coldplay’s “Clocks.” If she grabbed Gustavo’s baton and started leading the orchestra herself, no one would have really been surprised. Noting that it was her first proper show since releasing her debut album earlier in the year, Back Of My Mind, HER displayed no cobwebs in what was a deserving coronation for one of music’s newest stars. Surely many helped along the way, but on this night, all the flowers belonged to HER.
R&B singer HER has been experiencing a huge breakout over the past year after a slow-burning rise that included the EPs HER and I Used To Know HER and a burgeoning collection of awards that has her well on the way to an EGOT. Now, not only is her debut album out now and racking up critical praise, but she can also now count among her collaborators such names as Barack and Michelle Obama thanks to her work with them on the Netflix animated series We The People.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, she called the experience “life-changing,” saying she’d do “anything for the Obamas.” “It was more exciting more than anything,” she gushed. “it made me really want to kill it just because of them being attached and them being a part of it. It’s like, wow, I am a part of something that the Obamas [did]. It’s kind of life-changing.” She also spoke on the series’ theme of the importance of youth civic involvement.
“Sometimes you think, ‘I’m just a kid,’ or, ‘That’s a job for the adults,’ but the youth is really the beginning of the rest of our lives,” she noted. “I would like to believe my generation and younger, we’re going to set the tone for the future and it’s up to us to be informed. I always say you can’t understand today without understanding yesterday, and so I think kids are going to start being more proactive and not reactive and really take control of our future. And we’ll learn from those things that we learned in the past, and make a difference and make a change when they know that they can — that they have the power to. This project is going to empower people. I mean, it empowered me.”
In addition to winning Grammy and Oscar awards, HER also has her very own music festival. She first premiered the Lights On Festival back in 2019 with help from Summer Walker, Jhene Aiko, and Daniel Caesar. While there might’ve been plans to have the festival again in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic forced the singer to delay the show for the forseeable future. Now that things are reopening for the most part, HER used the 2021 BET Award stage to announce that the Lights On Festival would return this fall. Moments later, the official lineup for the show was revealed.
This year’s Lights On Festival will return the Concord Pavilion on the weekend of September 18-19. The show is led by Erkyah Badu, Bryson Tiller, and Ari Lennox as well HER who will appear with “friends” that have yet to be mentioned. Other performers for the Lights On Festival include Ty Dolla Sign, Keyshia Cole, Masego, Lucky Daye, Kiana Lede, Foushee, Blxst, VanJess, Arin Ray, Tone Stith, Tiana Major9, Maeta, Brianna Castilo, Samaria, Maxx Moore, Lorea, and more names to be announced.
In addition to announcing the festival at the BET Awards, HER also performed “We Made It” and won the Best Female R&B/Pop Artist award.
You can view the full lineup above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
Since 2016, HER has been serving up top-shelf R&B. Mixing emotional tales with potent production, her music has been a vessel of vulnerability. Whether waxing poetic about insecurities in love or crooning about political injustices, HER has mastered the ability to communicate the complexities of womanhood (especially one of Black and Filipino origins) and attempts to make messages out of her messes.
With the release of her proper debut album, Back Of My Mind, via MBK Entertainment/RCA Records, she delivers a melodic memoir of uncomfortable truths, sharing the parts of HER that carry weight. The only difference between this set and her previous projects: she’s made more figures and thus attracted more triggers. But material wealth has only given her more material to work with.
For context, HER was an industry mystery five years ago. Before stating one’s pronouns became standard practice, the singer/songwriter emerged with only a photo of a silhouette and ironically, a name that stood for “Having Everything Revealed.” Equipped with a velvety voice, the HER package included all-inclusive R&B at a time when the genre was commingling with rap, experimenting with alternative styles, or leaning into nostalgia. To this day, she says people fail to recognize her without her trademark shades.
The mysterious chanteuse turned out to be Gabi Wilson, the Vallejo, California native who had been performing since she was a child. She has released two compilation albums, comprising two sets of EPs — 2016’s HER: Volume 1 and 2018’s I Used To Know HER: The Prelude and I Used to Know Her: Part 2 — that solidified her star power. The awards and opportunities followed in abundance: four Grammys, an Oscar, five Soul Train Awards, an MTV Video Music Award, a Netflix movie cameo, soundtrack and TV show placements, brand endorsements, numerous collaborations and performances on national stages, including the BET Awards, the Super Bowl, and the Country Music Awards.
It may seem strange that the accolades would precede an artist’s official debut but HER’s Back Of My Mind is a portrait of perhaps the most triumphant and mentally challenging season of her career. The 21-track LP pops the cork with the celebratory “We Made It,” a Dom Perignon toast to the stress and blessings, both past and present.
The tone shifts by track two with the album’s namesake featuring Ty Dolla $ign, setting up the emotional obstacle course that dominates the debut. Lyrically, the tracks sound like transcripts of conversations that live in HER’s head. While her image has been equated with success, her moments of weakness and self-doubt are repurposed into motivation throughout the album. HER and featured guest Lil Baby wave off the haters and honor the hustler’s mentality on “Find A Way.” “Trauma,” co-starring Cordae on their second song together and produced by Hit-Boy, harps on what could be BOMM’s tagline: “I take it personal, I ain’t perfect though.”
In spite of her imperfections, HER’s pen is mightiest when the category is love, especially the unrequited kind. Among the highlights include “Cheat Code,” a guitar-driven joint with a writing credit from Julia Michaels (who’s penned songs for Selena Gomez, Fifth Harmony, and herself) that puts a cheater on blast and “Mean It,” where HER also strums her pain caused by an ain’t-sh*t lover.
As a result of her L’s in romance, HER proceeds to plaster caution tape all over her heart. The album’s lead single “Damage” (which samples the ‘80s classic “Making Love In The Rain” by Herb Alpert, Lisa Keith, and Janet Jackson) is a delicate plea to her partner to handle HER with care. On the Goapele-inspired “Closer To Me,” HER craves reassurance in a shaky situation while “Hard To Love” outlines the kind of concerns that drive couples to therapy, solo or together. To keep the rotation spicy, HER also lends her version of hot girl summer anthems with the YG-assisted standout “Slide,“ the sneaky link-ready “Come Through” and a late-night rendezvous with Yung Bleu on “Paradise.”
Elsewhere, HER takes issue with the state of the world. The Thundercat-assisted “Bloody Waters” borrows the formula from her Academy Award-winning “Fight For You” (included on the score for the highly praised drama Judas And The Black Messiah) by wrapping political messages in a weighted blanket of funk and pain that soothes yet aches. HER’s state-of-mind, though, is probably best summed up on “Exhausted.” Producer extraordinaire Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins lends his magic to the whew-worthy track that finds HER as a woman who’s had enough: “I’m way, way, way, way past bein’ jaded / And all of y’all just way too opinionated / I’m just sayin’, when do I get a say?”
On the DJ Khaled and Bryson Tiller collaboration “I Can Have It All,” HER gets the chance to talk her sh*t: “I know they say, ‘Money’ll make you change’ / That’s ’cause they can’t handle the price of fame / And while you was fantasizin’ ’bout chains / I was plottin’ on a way to buy my momma a house one day.” Although HER’s image was built on mystique, the narratives that fuel her music are familiar stories of shame, fears, and the growing pains that ultimately lead to clarity. Having means and good karma may have jacked up the price for her shows but it’s evident that even an artist of her caliber can’t afford peace of mind sometimes. But as long as she speaks her mind into a mic, those of us listening can at least try to have these crucial conversations with ourselves.
Back Of My Mind is out now via MBK Entertainment/RCA Records. Get it here.
Four-time Grammy Award-winning singer HER is just days away from the release of her highly anticipated album Back Of My Mind. The 21-track effort features collaborations with the likes of Ty Dolla Sign, Lil Baby, and DJ Khaled, but with her new single “My Own,” HER exemplifies her powerful solo songwriting.
The subdued beat on “My Own” gives HER the chance to showcase her emotive vocals. A reverberating bass underscores her sultry delivery as HER sings of the difficulty of getting over an ex while also recognizing the self growth that inevitably comes with it.
“I didn’t wanna pull out all my tricks at once. My first few [releases] were just a small piece of who I am musically, and it was a matter of time before I could reveal others. I’ve always been a huge fan of Coldplay and Led Zeppelin and Radiohead and alternative and rock and blues, but it wasn’t until this album that I started digging into those other elements and bringing them to R&B.”
Listen to “My Own” above and check out HER’s full conversation with Varietyhere.
Back Of My Mind is out 6/18 via MBK Entertainment/RCA Records. Pre-order it here.
Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Before earning four Grammy Awards, over a dozen nominations, and an Oscar, HER has been perfecting her artistry since a very young age. Along with making a name for herself with her moving music, the singer is also known for her ever-present sunglasses. In fact, some people apparently don’t recognize her without them.
HER recently chatted with Variety for their cover interview. During the conversation, HER spoke about her decision to take on a moniker, sport shades, and appear only as a silhouette on the cover of her debut project:
“Honestly, the reason I wanted to be HER is because I felt people tended to focus on the looks of things instead of music — listening with their eyes and not their ears. 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.”
The singer added that when she walks around her Brooklyn neighborhood, “people don’t recognize me without my glasses. Sometimes I feel like Clark Kent.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, HER described the ups-and-downs of starting her career at such a young age. “It was tough, honestly,” she said. “I would leave school for a few days every month or every other month to travel to New York, and I’d be doing independent study in the studio. There were a lot of sacrifices made, especially by my parents.”
But even with the sacrifices, HER always knew she was striving to make it big. “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 added. “Everybody else was thinking about the weekend, but I was thinking about the next ten years.”
Check out HER’s full conversation with Varietyhere.
HER has been a big deal since 2016, when she released her debut EP, HER Vol. 1. Over the years, the California-born artist has won a Grammy and an Oscar. Through it all, one of the only things HER hadn’t accomplished was release a full-length album, but that will change in just a few days.
Back Of My Mind, HER’s long-awaited long-player debut, will drop on June 18. After revealing its title and cover art earlier this month, the singer shared its tracklist with just three days until the album arrives. According to the Apple Music pre-save page, it’s comprised of 21 songs with contributions from Ty Dolla Sign, Hit-Boy, Cordae, Lil Baby, Kaytranada, Thundercat, Chris Brown, Yung Bleu, DJ Khaled, Bryson Tiller, and YG. Previously-released singles, “We Made It,” “Damage,” “Come Through,” “Hold On,” and “Slide.”
You can check out the full tracklist for the album below.
1. “We Made It”
2. “Back Of My Mind” Feat. Ty Dolla Sign
3. “Trauma” Feat. Cordae & Hit-Boy
4. “Damage”
5. “Find A Way” Feat. Lil Baby
6. “Bloody Waters” Feat. Kaytranada & Thundercat
7. “Closer To Me
8. “Come Through” Feat. Chris Brown
9. “My Own”
10. “Lucky”
11. “Cheat Code”
12. “Mean It”
13. “Paradise” Feat. Yung Bleu
14. “Process”
15. “Hold On”
16. “Don’t”
17. “Exhausted”
18. “Hard To Love”
19. “For Anyone”
20. “I Can Have It” Feat. DJ Khaled & Bryson Tiller
21. “Slide” feat. YG
Back Of My Mind is out 6/18 via MBK Entertainment/RCA Records. Pre-order it here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
A couple weeks ago, Amazon announced that they had recruited Billie Eilish, Kid Cudi, and HER for their “Prime Day Show,” a trio of exclusive performances set to drop on Prime Video on June 17. That’s just a few days away, and now, Amazon has shared a trailer for the program. Included in the video are snippets of each performance, all of which look more cinematic and narrative-based than most livestream or online-only concerts.
Amazon previously offered descriptions of each performance, saying of Eilish’s, “Billie brings a timeless, Parisian neighborhood to life with a series of cinematic performances. Set in the city known as the birthplace of cinema, it was directed by Billie Eilish and Sam Wrench, and features new music from Billie’s upcoming album, Happier Than Ever. This breathtaking musical tribute was inspired by Billie’s long-time admiration of a long gone era.”
They noted of Cudi’s show, “As he embarks on his biggest mission to date, Kid Cudi departs Earth to establish a new community on the moon in this intercosmic performance. Featuring music from his album Man On The Moon III, Cudi collaborates with the International Space Orchestra, the world’s first orchestra composed of space scientists from NASA Ames Research Center, the SETI Institute, and the International Space University as his backing band, in a musical collision defying sight, sound, and space.”
They also said of HER’s performance, “Once known as the hub of Los Angeles Black culture in the 1930’s and ’40s, the iconic Dunbar Hotel hosted some of the most prominent figures of its time, including musicians Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, and many more. In a modern day musical tribute to this legendary and important piece of history and culture, HER imagines what The Dunbar Hotel would be like if it existed in 2021 featuring new music from her album, Back Of My Mind.”
After being nominated for Golden Globes, winning Oscars and Grammys for her songs from soundtracks and protests, and working with some of the biggest names in music, HER is finally set to release her debut album, Back Of My Mind, on June 18. The singer revealed the release date with an insightful, black-and-white trailer she posted to social media. A voiceover reveals the creative process behind the album’s concept and title cards echo HER’s words as she explains herself.
“People always ask me, ‘What’s the message? Where does this come from? Is it personal experience?’” she says. “And it’s always the thoughts that sit in the back of my mind. It’s always things that I’ve been through, things that I go through, or what I feel, and all those thoughts that I’m afraid to say sometimes… Things that feel too honest or too vulnerable or too emotional or too aggressive… It’s all of those things that have been in the back of my mind for the past few years since my first project. It’s like a peek into my soul.”
It could be odd to think that the singer has so many projects out yet is only just releasing her debut album, but prior efforts H.E.R. and I Used to Know Her were both compilations of EP tracks she’d released as she slowly revealed her identity and shed the shadowy air of mystery she cultivated early in her career. Now, she’s performing alongside Chris Stapleton at the CMT Music Awards — a sure sign of her crossover appeal — and working with perennial pitchman DJ Khaled. Now, it seems she is finally ready to deliver the album that she’s spent a lifetime working toward.
WE ARE BACK! For the 
of R&B! 
