H.E.R. brought the themes and even subject of the film \u201cJudas and the Black Messiah\u201d into the performance of her Oscar-nominated song \u201cFight for You\u201d on the Academy Awards\u2019 pre-show telecast, \u201cInto the Spotlight,\u201d Sunday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The singer-songwriter started the number off at a drum kit before moving out in front of her band, soon joined by a large phalanx of beret- (and mask-) wearing dancers styled to resemble the Black Panthers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The circular platform at the center of the stage atop the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures showed video images of Fred Hampton, whose betrayal and murder are at the heart of \u201cJudas.\u201d Twin banners bearing the message \u201cPower of the people\u201d were unfurled on either side of the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The singer is nominated for\u00a0best original song\u00a0for the theme, along with collaborators D\u2019Mile and Tiara Thompson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All five nominated songs this year are being performed on the 90-minute pre-show, instead of on the awards show. \u201cFight for You\u201d is one of four that were all pre-recorded on the terrace of the soon-to-open Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. A fifth song, \u201cHusavik,\u201d from \u201cEurovision Song Contest,\u201d was filmed in the city of Husavik in Iceland, with Molly Sanden leading a children\u2019s choir from that city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other nominated songs are \u201cHear My Voice\u201d from \u201cThe Trial of the Chicago 7\u201d (performed by Daniel Pemberton and Celeste), \u201cIo Si (Seen)\u201d from \u201cThe Life Ahead (La Vita Davanti a Se)\u201d (performed by Diane Warren and Laura Pausini) and \u201cSpeak Now\u201d from \u201cOne Night in Miami\u2026\u201d (performed by Leslie Odom Jr.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The late \u201960s\/early \u201970s soul style of \u201cFight for You,\u201d though it has contemporary touches, was designed to match the period of a film that dramatizes Fred Hampton being betrayed by an FBI informant that has infiltrated the Panthers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not much that separates that time and that story from what\u2019s going on right now with the Black Lives Matter movement in the Black community,\u201d H.E.R. told Variety<\/em> in a recent interview. \u201cI wanted to create a universal message that represented what is still happening today and how that connects two generations. We\u2019re passing the torch and continuing on Hampton\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n