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H.E.R VibeZ

She released her first records without showing her face and won five Grammys before most people knew her name. Seventeen tracks of H.E.R.

H.E.R. wants to remain in control | The FADER

Having Everything Revealed

Gabriella Wilson is from Vallejo, California, and appeared on television as a child prodigy — she was on The Today Show at ten, playing piano. She was signed young, released under her own name, and it did not work.

The reinvention was the masterstroke. In 2016 she began releasing music as H.E.R. — the acronym stands for Having Everything Revealed — with no artist photographs, no interviews and no biography. The anonymity forced attention onto the records, and the records were extremely good: spare, guitar-led R&B with real musicianship underneath.

She is a genuine instrumentalist, which sets her apart in contemporary R&B. Her guitar playing is the centre of her live show, and her Grammy count — including Song of the Year for "I Can't Breathe" and an Academy Award for "Fight for You" from Judas and the Black Messiah — reflects an unusual level of institutional respect.

What to listen for

"Focus" is the one that broke through and still the best introduction — slow, unadorned, with a guitar figure doing most of the emotional work.

"Damage" is built on Herb Alpert's "Making Love in the Rain" and is her biggest pop moment. "Comfortable" and "Feel A Way" come from the same later, more confident period.

"I'm Not OK" is a D'Mile production and one of the most emotionally direct things she has recorded.

The collaborations show her reach. Robert Glasper's "Better Than I Imagined" with Meshell Ndegeocello won a Grammy and is the most musically interesting thing on the list. KAYTRANADA's "Intimidated" is the dance one, Wizkid's "Smile" the Afro-fusion one, and Skip Marley's "Slow Down" the reggae one.

Toni Braxton's "Gotta Move On" is the intergenerational pairing, and "Carried Away" and "Do To Me" are the deeper solo cuts.

Go deeper

H.E.R. (2017), the compilation of her early EPs, is where the anonymity-era material lives and remains her most coherent statement. Back of My Mind (2021) is the full album.

"I Can't Breathe" deserves its own listen — written and released in 2020, it is a protest song that resists every easy move available to a protest song, and the spoken final section is the part that lands.

For artists working the same instrumentalist-singer lane: Lianne La Havas, Yola and Brittany Howard. And for the tradition, Prince is the obvious model — a singer who is first a player, and who built the sound from the instrument outward.

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