Award-winning musician H.E.R. has debuted her new single, ‘I Can’t Breathe’, to honor George Floyd after his tragic death at the hands of a white police officer. The singer was a part of IHeatRadio’s Living Room Concert Series held on June 10 where she unveiled her protest song.
The live virtual concert was to help raise money for Meals on Wheels and the Urban League, with the latter receiving donations of over $75,000.
The song “means something very, very kind of painful and very revealing,” H.E.R. said before she blessed her virtual audience with this well-thought-out and heart-wrenching protest song.
The singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Grammy award-winning singer continued singing over a soulful guitar and organ combination. “All of the names you refuse to remember, was somebody’s brother or friend, son to a mother that’s crying, saying, ‘I can’t breathe, you’re taking my life from me.’”
Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police. Videos of the incident that were filmed by bystanders and shared on social media vividly describe how the deceased was arrested and what led to him suffering the “medical distress.”
Floyd is then heard saying, “Please, please, please, I can’t breathe.”
“My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Please, please. I can’t breathe.”
His death has sparked so many protests across major cities in the world. The powerful message of not allowing the deaths of innocent black people to go unpunished or overlooked is resounding through all media platforms.
A necessary wave of change to put an end to all these injustices that have been happening way before Floyd’s death and even after it is upon us now.
That is why H.E.R. is using her music to speak to the ongoing narrative and to bring some healing to those hurting because as we all know, music is therapeutic.
“Music is powerful when it comes to change and when it comes to healing,” H.E.R. explains, “and that’s why I wrote this song, to make a mark in history.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j78N8Z_Ao1Q
