When H.E.R. first appeared on national television screens, she was a wide-eyed, soft-spoken 10-year-old. To the clucking of the Today Show hosts, who describe her as someone with a voice “three times her age”, she sits at a piano with professionalism that trumps the attention deficit of most other kids her age. Still, her toothy grin and fluffy pink vest deceive expectations of the voice about to explode from the tiny body, and as she ploughs through impressive renditions of Alicia Keys’s ‘If I Ain’t Got You’, all the while tapping expertly away at the keys in front of her, tell-tale signs of her future success begin to rise.

Though H.E.R.’s first national U.S. performance unravelled like the ‘big bang’ of her career, years on, the young artist has solidified herself as somewhat of a mysterious talent, having hidden quietly in the folds of anonymity until the age of 21. It’s a popular and perhaps sanctimonious trope in the world of musical stardom (looking at you Sia, Daft Punk and MF Doom), yet for H.E.R., anonymity lent itself to the idea of placing music at the forefront rather than the brand of the superstar. 

Though today one may argue that the last wisps of H.E.R.’s anonymity have faded, the 23-year-old still asserts herself as somewhat of a mystique, popularly hiding behind face-contorting sunglasses and voluptuous black curls. An approach that has obviously worked. Four Grammy wins, 13 more nominations, an Oscar for Best Original Song and countless other awards now grace H.E.R.'s trophy cabinets, and it seems that she’s only just begun. Her latest whopping 21-track album Back of My Mind is a release specifically dedicated to all facets of R&B, and hones collaborations with the industry’s biggest names, from DJ Khaled to Thundercat to Lil Baby to Ty Dolla $ign.

Following these major successes, ACCLAIM was lucky enough to take time out of H.E.R.'s busy schedule to dial in on an international call, pulling H.E.R. from a full day of rehearsals. Despite her hectic schedule, she’s never flustered, and as we chat over the next 20 minutes she answers eloquently and in full thought-out sentences on the importance of R&B, the pitfalls of celebrity, and what it’s been like entering the music industry at such a young age.

Congratulations on the album!

Thank you so much!

So I know you have two full projects H.E.R. and I Used to Know Her, even though they aren’t albums, the latter won a Grammy in 2019 for Best Album. What went into this latest project Back Of My Mind to actually graduate it to an album?

Well, I think the idea and the difference between the other projects and this one is H.E.R. and I Used To Know Her were very specific to a certain time period, a certain feeling, and had a specific sound. And this album to me is all of those things in one, all of my perspectives and everything that I’ve felt, and everything that I’ve experienced and the growth musically, from H.E.R. to I Used to Know Her to now, and all of the above. So for this album, it was really important for me to make an R&B album. This project I like to call a celebration of R&B because it has so many elements of different genres but of course, it’s R&B at its core, and it represents what R&B is; alternative R&B, bluesy R&B, nineties R&B, hip hop R&B. So this album really celebrates all the things that make up Rhythm and Blues.

You’ve got an amazing number of collaborations on this album like Ty Dolla $ign, Kaytranada, Thundercat...I actually saw a picture of you hanging out with DJ Khaled's son as well, did you have a favourite collaboration?

Oh yeah (laughs), working with DJ Khaled was really cool. I don’t know if I have a favourite, each one is really unique and special and each collaborator is just different and brought a different thing to the album and that was the idea, people bringing something really different. So I don’t know if I have an absolute favourite. Each song is so different from the others. 

Before you were saying that you really wanted to focus this album on R&B. You’re now regularly categorized as R&B, in fact, I would say you’ve become a defining artist of the genre. Do you find that you naturally fall into that sound?

Yeah, you know, R&B is in everything, Rhythm and Blues is literally the foundation of music. It all comes from soul, it all comes from gospel and blues, and so I am R&B at the core and I am a soulful singer and everything that I do is rooted in soul music but I consider myself genreless. It was important for me to make an R&B album to show people that R&B is alive. R&B is a huge part of me and of course, that’s who I am but I also have a reggae EP and I also have a Christian song out, and then this album is coming out. I have ambitions to work with Coldplay and people like that, so I don’t like to put myself in any kind of box, because there’s so much that I do and there’s so many types of things that I like to create, you know, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis told me there’s only two genres of music ‘good and bad’ and I’ve always believed that even as a young kid, just because I’ve always listened to everything and anything. So I’ll always continue to champion R&B. I have my own festival Lights On Festival which is coming in September and I did it in 2019 and everybody saw how important R&B is to the culture and to music, just by people coming out and seeing a lot of R&B artists. So yeah, there's a lot of things that I want to do, and I feel like I had the creative freedom to use music as a playground for me, it’s a fun space so I have to take advantage.

So it seems like R&B reached a peak in the early 2000s. Do you think it’s had a revival in the last few years?

You know, I don’t think it was ever dead. R&B has always been really strong, but it being at the forefront is different. Music always changes, the landscape always changes. Pop culture changes, things that people like and gravitate towards and what's leading always changes, but I’m definitely seeing a resurgence on a lot of different platforms. I see a lot of people comparing a lot of new artists to some of their old favourites, and those old favourites like Brandy and Monica and Aaliyah, they were literally the soundtrack to our most important moments and that’s what R&B is to me. It’s always been the soundtrack to our lives and I think we’re definitely seeing people need that substance and need those kinds of honest lyrics and vulnerable lyrics and I really appreciate artists like Drake who continue to bring it into the world of hip hop and continue to just champion R&B and respect R&B and bring up other artists who are also R&B. Then there’s Jhene Aiko who’s blended it and made it more alternative R&B, and PARTYNEXTDOOR. People like that are the people who I was listening to in high school—but then you have Jazmine Sullivan who's always been an amazing vocalist and has set the tone for being a great singer.