Db major · Camelot 3B · 91 BPM
I Used to Love H.E.R.
by Common
- 91
- BPM
- Db major
- Key
- 3B
- Camelot
- 74
- Danceability
- 7
- Acousticness
Common wrote "I Used to Love H.E.R." as an extended metaphor, telling the story of a woman he once loved who gradually changed for the worse. The Chicago-born rapper, then performing as Common Sense, used this relationship to trace the history of hip hop music and his disappointment with the direction it had taken. The track was produced by No I.D., who built a jazzy beat around a sample of "The Changing World" by George Benson.
Relativity Records released the song on September 27, 1994 as the lead single from Common's second studio album, Resurrection. It became one of his best known recordings and drew wide praise, with critics calling it a bittersweet ode to hip hop and the standout track on the album. In 2008 it was ranked number 69 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop, and it also took the top spot on About.com's list of the greatest rap songs of all time.
A music video, filmed on September 20, 1994 and directed by Chris Halliburton, brought the metaphor to the screen. It featured clips of Common's home of Southside Chicago alongside the woman at the center of the story. In one scene she appeared with two other gangster-looking women, an allusion to the rise of gangsta rap and the way she "became a gangster".
I Used to Love H.E.R. runs at 91 BPM, the tempo of hip-hop, R&B and reggaeton. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.64 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 659 ms. It is in Db major, Camelot 3B, which shares its notes with Bb minor and mixes cleanly with F# major and Ab major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.