By Dan Singer
Major League Baseball announced Wednesday that Grammy-winning R&B singer H.E.R. will perform the national anthem before the Texas Rangers take on the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 1 of the World Series on Friday.
FOX will carry the performance as part of its coverage of the game, which begins at 6 p.m. H.E.R.’s performance is expected to be broadcast at about 6:45 p.m. ahead of the first pitch.
The 26-year-old musician has won five Grammy Awards, most recently for “Fight for You,” written for the 2021 film Judas and the Black Messiah and released as a single. She also has an Emmy and an Oscar under her belt and is set to make her feature film debut next year in a screen adaptation of The Color Purple.
Her breakthrough came in 2018 when she earned five Grammy nods, putting her alongside Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Childish Gambino and Cardi B. Since then, she has become a top figure in contemporary R&B.
It isn’t her first time kicking off a championship. In 2021, she performed “America the Beautiful” at Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Fla.
On Saturday, Pearle Peterson, this year’s Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s National Youth Talent Performer, will giver her rendition of the anthem before Game 2. The high school senior from Sequim, Wash., has been a member of the organization for 11 years, according to a release from MLB, and in the past year has performed across the country.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
