LOS ANGELES — Growing up as a biracial Black and Filipina musician, singer-songwriter H.E.R. could count on a few things her two cultures shared.
"Filipino Americans love R&B like Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. We love hip-hop and we love a really powerful ballad. There's always music happening," the 24-year-old born Gabriella Wilson said, two days before presenting at the Academy Awards and a week before she's up for album of the year at the 64th Grammys. "I should be careful here, but Filipinos are kind of like the Black people of Asia. I love all our commonalities. When my mom married a Black man, our cultures meshed."
Amid the pressure on the Grammys to better represent the diversity of who makes and listens to pop music today, this year's nominations showed one notable flowering of that work: it's the best year for Filipino Americans in Grammy history.
