“Black lives matter and so does black love; no one wants a life without love, but we have generations of people in our community who haven’t had the tools to actually be in healthy relationships. It seems like people are finally ready to open their eyes to systemic racism in this country, and if we’re going to talk about it, we have to also talk about how it affects our relationships — how we communicate, how we see ourselves, how we treat each other. It’s not always good, even though maybe it could be.”

Robert Glasper

On August 27 Robert Glasper dropped a new single entitled Better Than I Imagined featuring H.E.R. and Meshell Ndegeocello. This dreamy song showcases Glasper’s gift for blurring the lines between jazz and hip hop through beautiful, melodic compositions. Glasper is a jazz pianist and composer from Houston, Texas whose 2012 album Black Radio won a Grammy for best R&B album.

In Better Than I Imagined, the listener floats on H.E.R.’s velvety “heys”, her voice syrupy over the clear notes of the piano keys and bright drum beats. There’s a mellow jazziness to the song that soothes despite its treatment of a conflicted relationship. It is accompanied by a surreal, colorful music video directed by Marvin Lau and animated by Gianni Lee.

In a sort of stream of consciousness inner dialogue, H.E.R. reflects on a love that was fierce and passionate — “magic madness”— but didn’t last. The listener wonders why such a wonderful connection, why a relationship that was better than H.E.R. could have imagined, wasn’t enough to keep the couple together. Indeed, while the song celebrates the beauty and force of Black love, it also laments the structures that keep it from continuing to thrive in the form of healthy relationships.

“Relationships do not function in a vacuum. They function within a complex context involving social factors, individual characteristics, and psychosocial resources which may contribute to the manner in which spouses interact with their partners.”

Chalandra M. Bryant, Professor at the University of Georgia

Glasper writes music as a reflection of the times we are in. And in this time when systemic racism is being examined more closely than ever before, Glasper’s latest single might inspire the listener to question the societal structures that impede Black success and love.

For example, studies have shown that adversity— particularly financial strain— decrease relationship quality, while marriage also has less of a support system in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods. And of course, through factors like redlining and education funding, Black Americans are much more likely to face such socioeconomic realities than their white counterparts.

A day after this song debuted, Glasper performed at the March on Washington, exactly 57 years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Better Than I Imagined takes its root during a period of increasing wokeness in regards to the Black experience, blooming into a ballad that uplifts the beauty of Black love and the unimaginable heights to which it can soar if it is just given the proper nourishment.

The song ends on an auspicious note when Ndegeocello calls a former love after losing her phone, realizing that theirs is the only number she remembers. Her crooning, sighed-out message at the end makes you hold your breath in anticipation for what she will say next; it is intimate, confessional, her “remember?” inviting the listener in on a vulnerable conversation, her “I’ll call again, maybe you’ll answer” a little heartbreaking. It is hopeful yet haunting at the same time.

And at the end— almost like a revelation— when Ndegeocello agrees that being with them was better than she could have ever imagined and then the beat picks up and twirls away, you are left thinking that surely the couple will find a way back to each other, right? At least, one can hope.  

Note: I wrote this article for my application to be a freelance music journalist for the music magazine Sounds So Beautiful. It’s a Lyon-based, bilingual publication that uplifts and celebrates emerging artists. I’m now a writer for Sounds So Beautiful, and I wanted to post my first music piece here since it was not published on the site!