I Used to Love H.E.R.

"I Used to Love H.E.R."
Song

I Used to Love H.E.R is a Hip-Hop song by the Chicago-born rapper Common. Released on the 1994 album Resurrection, I Used to Love H.E.R has since become one of Common’s best known songs. It is often regarded by Hip-Hop purists as one of the greatest rap recordings ever.

The lyrics use a woman that Common used to love as a metaphor for hip hop. The song criticized the direction Hip Hop music was taking during the mid-1990s, with the popularity of West Coast G-Funk rap. In this song, Common makes an interesting analogy; comparing the degradation of a woman with the deterioration of Hip-Hop music after its commercial success forced it into the mainstream:

I might've failed to mention that the chick was creative

But once the man got to her, he altered the native

Told her if she got an image and a gimmick

That she could make money, and she did it like a dummy

Now I see her in commercials, she's universal

She used to only swing it with the inner-city circle

Now she be in the 'burbs lookin' rock and dressin' hippie

And on some dumb shit, when she comes to the city

Talkin' about poppin' glocks, servin' rocks, and hittin' switches

Now she's a gangsta, rollin' with gangsta bitches

Always smoking’ blunts and getting drunk

Telling me sad stories, now she only fucks with the funk

Stressing how hardcore and real she is

She was really the realest, before she got into showbiz

I did her, not just to say that I did it

But I'm committed, but so many niggas hit it

That she's just not the same letting all these groupies do her

I see niggas slammin' her, and takin' her to the sewer

But I'm a take her back hoping that the shit stop

Cause who I'm talking bout y'all is Hip Hop

Due to its controversial content, the song ignited the hip-hop feud with West Coast Rapper, Ice Cube, and helped fuel the growing animosity towards the West Coast Hip-Hop scene during the early stages of the East Coast-West Coast rivalry.