Everyone loves H.E.R.
And the song that put her over the top was the 2016/17 hit song, “Focus” that appeared on her self-entitled EP, H.E.R. Well, the song that has been so many people’s “Baby Making Music” playlist was co-written by Justin Love, a emerging talent out of New Jersey.
Love, a self-taught Puerto Rican/ Cuban singer, met H.E.R.’s manager Jeff Robinson in New York City. Robinson invited him to a session with the new starlet and the rest is history. When asked about the song on popular YouTube star Terrell Grice’s The Terrell Show‘s “Song Association” series, he revealed an exclusive nugget about who exactly the song was written about.
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Love stated that he wrote the majority of the Grammy nominated song about a woman. But this woman was not a romantic love-interest. Instead, the song was written about his mother.
“You guys are lucky… Nobody knows what that song is about but me.” Justin smiles in the camera and shares. “That song is about my mom. My mom would open up to me. I was my mom’s everything, her strongest anything. My mom, she opened up to me and was like I just want your father to love me… to touch me… me, me, me. Focus on me.”
“Focus was actually the first song I ever wrote (co-wrote) with anyone. I never wrote for anybody before. And I thought that was a perfect opportunity to let a woman speak on [something that mattered to her]. The most special woman in my life [inspired it], it weighed heavy on my heart and I thought she [H.E.R.] was the perfect person to relay that message.”
“So hands in the soap… my mom washed the dishes all the time… I would see her looking at my dad, while my dad is watching T.V.” He continues, “It’s [a song] about women period and what women go through.”
The host Terrell Grice and his popular show has made a name in the music world by providing one of the most comprehensive talent discovery platforms for R&B music. Scouring through the internet, he searches for voices that are undeniably some of the best vocals of his generation. American Idol. The Voice. X Factor. The incredible Stevie Mackey. Todrick Hall. Amber Riley. If they can sing… Grice finds them. And on this episode, Love sings the dickens out of the talent scout.
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Justin finishes the segment with this.
“Long story short… I feel like it is really important for women to really speak upon whatever… anything… they go through. And if I can be a voice for anybody, I’ll put it in my pen and I’ll let a woman speak upon it. I mean ’cause only a woman can speak from a woman’s perspective.”
Justin Love has new music available.
