R&B singer HER won the Grammy award on Sunday for Song of the Year, thanks to its protest theme “I Can’t Breathe”, about the pain of black people and police brutality.
HER prevailed in this category over Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Billie Eilish to win one of the main prizes of the largest American music festival.
The 23-year-old artist released this guitar single in June 2020 in the wake of mass protests against racism following the death in police custody of a black man George Floyd.
“I Can’t Breathe” were also the last words of Eric Garner, who was strangled to death in 2014 when New York police arrested him on suspicion of selling loose cigarettes.
Six years later, Floyd repeated these words in Minnesota, when he begged for mercy from a policeman who knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes, also killing him by strangulation.
The phrase has become a slogan of the anti-racist movement Black Lives Matter (Black lives matter) and, in his melancholy song, H.E.R. he wonders why these three words are so often listened to with indifference.
Before the 2021 gala, HER already had two Grammy Awards under its belt.
The singer, whose real name is Gabriella Wilson, she maintains an air of anonymity and often hides behind daring dark sunglasses, letting her velvety voice speak for itself.
The Californian, who chose the acronym for “Having Everything Revealed” for her artistic career, was respected in the music industry long before she rose to fame.