About Me
Credit: Jason Armond for The Los Angeles Times
Heran Mamo is an award-winning Ethiopian American music journalist currently working as a Senior R&B/Hip-Hop/Afrobeats Writer at Billboard. Originally from Portland, Oregon, she moved to Los Angeles, California, to pursue a journalism degree at USC and internships at various entertainment magazines. She specializes in pop, hip-hop, R&B and Afrobeats music coverage and believes in amplifying the voices of underserved communities within the industry.
Writing about music feels like making music to Heran, her fingers gliding across the keyboard like it's a keyboard. And the words she writes transform into lyrics by how they flow. She's written cover stories about The Weeknd, Burna Boy, SZA, Ice Spice, Metro Boomin, PARTYNEXTDOOR and Tyla; moderated panels at AFRICON in LA, SXSW in Austin, Texas and Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, Germany; and made TV appearances on Good Morning America, CBS News and Entertainment Tonight.
As Featured In
being interviewed about USC's role in hip-hop's evolution for USC (April 2024)
being interviewed about Beyonce's 'Renaissance' album for Teen Vogue (February 2023)
being interviewed about Afrobeats music for NPR (February 2024)
being interviewed about Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour for CBS News (May 2023)
being interviewed about blurring lines of genre on Spotify's The RapCaviar Podcast (September 2022)
being interviewed about Beyoncé's 'Renaissance' album for Good Morning America (July 2022)
being interviewed about Beyoncé's "Break My Soul" single for Entertainment Tonight (June 2022)
being interviewed about Beyoncé's "Break My Soul" single for Good Morning America (June 2022)
being interviewed about being Black in Los Angeles for The Los Angeles Times (June 2022)
being interviewed about The Weeknd having the new No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 Song of All Time for Billboard (December 2021)
being interviewed about being an Ethiopian woman in music journalism for tSionMeetups (June 2021)
being interviewed about Black women in music in 2020 for Billboard (March 2021)
being interviewed about being a woman in the music industry for Amethyst Collab (March 2021)
being interviewed about being a Black woman in journalism for USC Annenberg Media (March 2021)
being interviewed about being a woman in music journalism for Amethyst Collab (December 2020)
- Heran Mamo
being interviewed about being a young Black journalist in the media revolution for YR Media (July 2020)
being interviewed about my bilingual background for The Lily (August 2019)
being interviewed about Black Music Month on USC's Instagram (Juneteenth 2020)
being interviewed about the wealth gap at USC for The New York Times (April 2019)
being interviewed about Nipsey Hussle's passing for Annenberg TV News (April 2019)
being featured on Teen Vogue's Instagram about the LA Summit Meetup (October 2017)