By Olamide Gbemisola
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for over nine minutes. Floyd kept saying “I can’t breathe” until he was gone. The video went everywhere almost immediately, and it sparked one of the biggest protest movements the United States had ever seen. In the middle of all that pain and anger, an artist named H.E.R., whose real name is Gabriella Wilson, released a song called “I Can’t Breathe.” It was raw, emotional, and honest. The song went on to win a Grammy for Song of the Year in 2021. But it was more than just a great song. It was a statement. It was a response to a specific moment in history, and it used music to speak up when a lot of people felt like no one was listening.
This paper examines H.E.R.’s “I Can’t Breathe” through what is called the rhetorical situation, a way of analyzing communication by looking at the problem that caused it, who it was speaking to, what made it difficult to make, and what tools were used to make it powerful. It also draws on ideas from Dick Weissman’s book Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution: Music and Social Change in America, which traces how music has been used throughout American history to push back against systems of power. Weissman argues that music can be “a platform for social change” and that the most powerful protest songs come from artists who feel a direct obligation to speak, not just to perform. H.E.R.’s “I Can’t Breathe” is a clear example of exactly that kind of music.
The Problem That Started It All: Exigence
In rhetoric, the word “exigence” means the problem or situation that makes someone feel the need to speak up. Think of it as the reason the message had to be made. For H.E.R., the exigence was George Floyd’s murder, but it was also so much more than just that one event. His death came on top of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and years of Black people being killed by police with little to no accountability. It also happened during a pandemic that was hitting Black and brown communities especially hard. Everything piled up at once, and there was a sense that something had to be said.
H.E.R. has talked in interviews about how she felt like she had no choice but to write this song. It was not about getting streams or radio play, she felt a responsibility to respond. That is exactly what exigence means in rhetoric. The situation demanded a response, and she answered it. Communication scholar Lloyd Bitzer wrote that real rhetoric is never created out of nowhere, it is always called into being by a real situation that urgently needs to be addressed. “I Can’t Breathe” is a perfect example. The song exists because something terrible happened, and silence felt like giving up.
Weissman makes a similar point in Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution when he writes about how protest songs throughout American history have come from moments of urgency. He notes that artists like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger “viewed music as a platform for social change” and that their most powerful songs came directly out of real conditions affecting real people. The same is true for H.E.R. She did not write “I Can’t Breathe” as a distant observer commenting on events. She wrote it as a member of a community that was hurting, which is exactly where the power of the song comes from.
Who Was She Talking To? The Audience
When thinking about who H.E.R. made this song for, the answer is actually more than one group of people. The most obvious audience is Black Americans, people who were grieving, angry, and exhausted. For them, the song was validation. It said: your pain is real, your anger makes sense, and you are not alone. That kind of message matters more than people realize. When you are in the middle of a crisis and you feel like the world is not listening, hearing your experience reflected back through music can be both healing and energizing.
But H.E.R. was also talking to people who were not Black, people who had watched the video of Floyd’s death and could not look away, people who were asking themselves what they were supposed to do with what they were feeling. The song reaches that audience too. Part of the reason it works so well is that H.E.R. plays guitar. That might sound like a small detail, but it is actually significant. Guitar-driven music is associated with rock and roll, which many people connect to white artists, even though rock and roll came from Black musicians. By playing guitar, H.E.R. was not just making music. She was reclaiming a sound and saying that this message is for everyone.
Weissman discusses this challenge of audience throughout his book. He points out that some protest artists aim mostly at “the converted”, people who already agree with the message, while others try to reach a broader audience. He notes that songs which manage to cross racial and cultural lines often do so because of their sound as much as their words. H.E.R. understood this instinctively. By blending rock, soul, and R&B into one sound, she made a song that was harder to dismiss or categorize as belonging to just one group. That was both a creative choice and a rhetorical one.
What Weissman Says About Music and Social Change
Dick Weissman’s Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution covers centuries of American protest music, from immigrant songs and labor anthems to civil rights anthems and rap. One of the central questions Weissman asks is whether music can actually cause social change. His honest answer is that it is complicated. He writes that “even though a song cannot create social change, it can certainly be the inspiration that ultimately leads to such changes.” This is an important distinction. Music does not pass laws or stop police brutality on its own. But it can shift the way people think and feel, build community among people who are struggling, and keep a movement’s energy alive when things get hard.
Weissman points to songs like “Solidarity Forever” and “Which Side Are You On?” as examples of music that helped organize workers during the labor movement. These songs did not win strikes by themselves, but they reminded workers that they were not alone, and that unity was their greatest strength. The same logic applies to “I Can’t Breathe.” H.E.R.’s song did not end police violence. But it gave millions of people a shared language for their grief, their anger, and their demand for change. It reminded listeners that what happened to George Floyd was not an isolated incident, but part of a long pattern that deserved a response.
Weissman also talks about the deep tradition of Black protest music in America, tracing it from the spirituals that enslaved people used to communicate and resist, through the blues, jazz, soul, and rap. He argues that this tradition is one of the most powerful and consistent threads in American music. Every generation of Black artists has found ways to speak truth through music, often in the face of real personal risk. H.E.R. is part of that same tradition. “I Can’t Breathe” connects directly to Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam,” Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright.” By adding her voice to that lineage, H.E.R. was also reminding her audience that 2020 was not a new problem, it was the latest chapter of a much older one.
What Made It Hard: The Constraints
Nothing gets made without obstacles, and H.E.R. had some real ones. The first was the professional risk that comes with being openly political as an artist. Weissman writes about this throughout his book. He notes that even famous artists like Billie Holiday faced serious consequences for recording protest music, “Strange Fruit” was so controversial that her label, Columbia Records, refused to put it out, and she had to release it through a small independent company instead. The music industry has always been cautious about political content because it is, first and foremost, a business.
H.E.R. was still building her career when she released “I Can’t Breathe.” She was not yet at a level where she could afford to lose a significant part of her audience without consequences. Releasing a song that directly named police violence and systemic racism as the problem was a real gamble. Some artists choose to stay quiet in situations like this because the cost feels too high. H.E.R. made a different choice.
There was also a cultural pressure that Black artists often face, the expectation to express sadness quietly rather than speak with anger or accusation. Weissman describes how this played out for many blues artists who wanted to make protest songs but were limited by white-owned record companies that controlled what got recorded and distributed. A similar kind of gatekeeping has always existed in the music industry. Songs that are too direct about racial injustice risk being labeled as divisive or too political, and can be quietly blocked from radio play or major platforms. H.E.R. pushed against that expectation. Her song does not soften the truth or leave the cause of the pain vague. It points directly at what is happening in America and refuses to look away.
What She Used to Make It Work: Rhetorical Resources
Even with all of those challenges, H.E.R. had powerful tools working in her favor. The most immediately striking is the guitar. Electric guitar in a protest song from a young Black woman is not something people expected, and that element of surprise got attention. It also placed her in a tradition of guitar-driven expression that goes back to the roots of American music. Weissman writes extensively about how instruments and musical styles carry cultural meaning. The guitar in “I Can’t Breathe” is not just a sound, it is a statement of belonging to a long line of artists who used music to say something real.
Lyrically, one of the most powerful things H.E.R. does is speak in George Floyd’s voice. Instead of just singing about what happened to him, she repeats “I can’t breathe” as if she is giving him the voice he was silenced from using. This technique, rhetoricians call it prosopopoeia, which means giving voice to someone who cannot speak for themselves, has been used in protest music for a long time. Weissman discusses how many civil rights movement songs took on the perspective of people who had been oppressed or killed, as a way of forcing listeners to feel the weight of what had happened. H.E.R. uses the same technique, and it works just as powerfully here. The listener does not feel like they are watching someone perform grief from a safe distance. They feel like they are right there with Floyd.
The music video adds another layer. Shot in black and white, it mixes footage of H.E.R. performing with images of protests and historical photographs. The choice to film in black and white pulls the song out of just 2020 and connects it to the entire history of Black resistance in America. It makes the viewer feel like this is not a new crisis, it is the same crisis that has been going on for generations. That connection to history gives the message more weight, not less, because it refuses to let the audience think the problem started recently or can be quickly fixed.
Weissman also notes that the most effective protest songs do more than express pain, they build something. They create what he describes as solidarity, a sense among listeners that they are part of a shared struggle and can act together. H.E.R. does this by moving back and forth between “I” and “we” throughout the song. She starts personally and moves outward. By the time she is singing about what “we” are going to do, the listener feels included. They are no longer just watching someone else’s protest, they are part of it. That shift from individual to collective is one of the most important rhetorical moves in the entire song.
How She Broke Through: The Grammy and Beyond
Winning Song of the Year at the 2021 Grammys was not just a personal achievement for H.E.R. It meant something bigger. Weissman writes about how protest music has historically struggled to get recognition from mainstream institutions, partly because those institutions are often connected to the same commercial and political forces that protest music is pushing against. When the Recording Academy gave Song of the Year to a song literally titled “I Can’t Breathe”, a song that directly calls out police violence and systemic racism, it was a sign that H.E.R.’s rhetorical act had broken through in a real way.
Weissman also points out a challenge that is very relevant here. He writes that a few large corporations now own so many radio stations that “the idea of a real protest song being widely played on the air is virtually unthinkable.” The Grammy win essentially forced radio and media to engage with “I Can’t Breathe” in a way that might not have happened otherwise. It gave the song a kind of institutional stamp that made it harder to ignore. The mainstream music world had to acknowledge what H.E.R. had made and what it stood for.
Her acceptance speech extended the rhetorical work of the song itself. She did not just thank her team and move on. She used that platform to keep talking about the issue and to remind people that the conversation was not over just because a song had won an award. In rhetoric, the situation does not end when one message is delivered, it continues as long as the conditions that created it remain in place. H.E.R. understood that, and she kept pushing.
Music in America: Using Weissman’s Framework
One of the most interesting arguments in Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution is about what music can and cannot do. Weissman is honest about the limits of protest music. He writes that “a song cannot create social change” on its own. But he also argues that music can “be the inspiration that ultimately leads to such changes.” That framing is actually very helpful for understanding what H.E.R. accomplished with “I Can’t Breathe.”
The song did not end police brutality or reform the criminal justice system. But it did something important: it kept the conversation going at a moment when there was real pressure to move on. It gave people a shared emotional reference point. It reminded listeners that what happened to George Floyd was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern with deep historical roots. And it used the Grammy stage to force that message into spaces where it might not otherwise have been welcomed.
Weissman also writes about the challenge of the internet and digital distribution, noting that while it has “its possibilities,” the fragmentation of online platforms makes it hard for protest songs to reach mass audiences unless the artist is already well known. H.E.R. is an interesting case here because she released the song independently on social media, then the Grammy win brought it to a much wider audience. That two-step process, direct community release followed by institutional recognition, ended up being more powerful than either step would have been alone. It is the kind of creative navigation that Weissman’s book shows protest artists have always had to do, working within and around the systems that exist to reach the people who need to hear the message.
Conclusion
H.E.R.’s “I Can’t Breathe” is one of the most important songs to come out of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement. It was not made to be a hit. It was made because someone with a voice and a guitar felt an obligation to speak up during one of the most painful moments in recent American history. And it worked, not just emotionally, but rhetorically. It identified a clear problem, spoke to multiple audiences, pushed through real obstacles, and used smart creative choices to make people feel, think, and act.
When read through the lens of Dick Weissman’s Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution, it becomes clear that what H.E.R. was doing is part of a tradition that goes back centuries in American music. Weissman shows that protest music has always had to fight to be heard, against commercial gatekeepers, against social expectations, against the pressure to stay quiet and not make waves. H.E.R. faced all those same forces in 2020 and pushed through them anyway. Her song proved what Weissman argues throughout his book: that music can be a platform for social change, that it can inspire people when inspiration is what a movement needs most, and that in the hands of the right artist, a song can be an act of resistance that outlasts the moment that created it. George Floyd said, “I can’t breathe.” H.E.R. made sure the world did not forget it.
Works Cited
Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy and Rhetoric, vol. 1, no. 1, 1968, pp. 1-14.
Gaye, Marvin. “What’s Going On.” What’s Going On, Tamla Records, 1971.
H.E.R. “I Can’t Breathe.” RCA Records, 2020.
Holiday, Billie. “Strange Fruit.” Commodore Records, 1939.
Lamar, Kendrick. “Alright.” To Pimp a Butterfly, Top Dawg Entertainment, 2015.
Simone, Nina. “Mississippi Goddam.” Nina Simone in Concert, Philips Records, 1964.
Weissman, Dick. Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution: Music and Social Change in America. Backbeat Books, 2010.