It shakes me to my core. Full, profound, with an uncanny spiritual quality. I listen to her and have a religious experience. Thank the lord, someone finally gets me. Her voice had a quality of life, so true to nature and so beautiful. Her fingers danced across the keys with such grace…. it was like she was made to play.

Her utter honesty in her lyrics and in life.

“Birds flying high you know how I feel

Sun in the sky you know how I feel

Breeze driftin’ on by you know how I feel

And this old world is a new world

And a bold world

For me

And I’m feeling good

I’m feeling good”

– Nina Simone

Her diligence during the civil right’s movement.

“Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking”

– Nina Simone

Her understanding of the deep seed that oppression leaves on the psyche.

“The worst thing about that kind of prejudice…is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds your self-doubt. You start thinking, perhaps I am not good enough.”

– Nina Simone

She never denied her exhaustion from work and from life itself.

Oh we know Miss Simone, we know, we feel it too!

She knew the sufferings of life, having suffered so much herself. In fact she knew it so well that she expressed it in her aggressive and crazed behaviors and may have ultimately led to her mental affliction.

The feeling of being trapped in a career, in a body, and on a land…which you never asked to be.

We all know, we all feel it too Miss Simone.

But it happened…and now life is teaming inside of you and your only release is through the uttering of sound of from your mouth and the tapping of your fingers on the keys. No, words aren’t powerful enough, it has to be emotionally comprehensive, it has to be music.

We understand.

I am not saying she was always right, and she didn’t have to be, but she was genuine, and thats what matters the most.

p1040562The picture above is a great article from Elle Magazine and can be found here. 

In honor of Black History Month I wanted to do a post on the legendary Nina Simone. The influence of Nina Simone on the world was undeniable. Her music was popular in the media and proliferated the music scene for decades. She received unprecedented recognition up until the end of her life in 2003. Even samples of her music are featured in the numerous electronic and hip hop songs. One of my favorites being “How I Feel” by Wax Tailor. She was an influence in the musical upbringings of legends like Elton John, Beyonce, Lauryn Hill, Davide Bowie, and Cat Stevens.

Lord…you put a powerful women on Earth 84 years ago, February 21st, 1933 and she was Little Girl Blue, the High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone, Eunice Kathleen Waymon.

If you haven’t check out the documentary on Netflix, “What Happened Miss Simone?”, you should. It helps you to understand her madness…her genius.