H.E.R. whole point is that she could be any of us.

Always performing behind big sunglasses and with her anonymous pronoun moniker, H.E.R (an acronym for “Having Everything Revealed”) is really 23-year-old Gabriella Wilson, who’s actually been performing on big stages like The Today Show and Apollo Theater since she was 9.

So why all the secrecy now? “I feel like oftentimes we don’t like to be open as people about our emotions or things that we are going through,” she said. “I am a voice for women who feel like they’re alone in these situations… and that’s what I want it to be about – not what I look like or who I’m with, but the raw emotion and support for women.”

For all of the mystery around her, that rings true. H.E.R. is telling complicated stories for modern women. They’re not just about love, but about love when you also love yourself, and “Hard Place” is a brilliant example of that. Maybe the video’s biographical, maybe it’s not, but it’s all about the tension in a relationship when she’s thrust into the spotlight and he’s left behind. It’s a little gut-wrenching to watch (they’re so cute!!), thrusting you into a hard place right alongside them as an innocent bystander empathetic to both lovers.

Of course, we don’t really know him, and she plays 5 instruments and sings with a maturity well beyond her years, so she’s gonna win every time. There’s also been a tendency to compare H.E.R. to Prince for her insane proficiency on all those instruments, brilliance in songwriting, vocal range, and bit of eccentricity in generally hiding away from the public eye. (Those comparisons were only fueled when she performed “Nothing Compares 2 U” for last year’s Emmy’s “In Memoriam” segment.) All of that, plus this cliffhanger of an ending to “Hard Place,” and there’s no doubt you’ll be following H.E.R. down the rabbit hole.

Just settle into the fact that you may never truly see her face along the way.

𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗥 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 𝗜𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗥 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭 | 𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗖𝗛 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 𝗜𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗥 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭