elektricity:

Nina Simone by Dezo Hoffman, London 1950

photomusik:

Nina Simone

Nina Simone performing “Four Women” at the Harlem Cultural Festival, 1969. [x]

Mario Zucca Illustration 

rustons:

Simone is our people’s Bach. She is the foundation for making popular music interesting and her activist side makes her a heroine to us. (x)

——

She wanted success, was pressured to make hits, but her own sound was still irrepressible. She had things to say, she protested. She was a loud, proud Black, female voice during a time when Black female voices were not encouraged to make themselves heard. (x)

Meshell Ndegeocello

klovers:

A Word From The Wise: 

• “If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling. Not two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music, or it isn’t music.” - Billie Holiday

• “When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulders and I wouldn’t notice.” - Sarah Vaughan

• “The only time that I am really truly happy, when I feel my best, is when I’m on stage.” - Etta James

• “Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was apart of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.” - Nina Simone

• “Being a singer is a natural gift. It means I’m using to the highest degree possible, the gift God gave me to use. I’m happy with that.” - Aretha Franklin 

• “I am always aware that there’s an audience out there, and as a performer, I have to make a warm connection. People want to see as song as well as hear it.” - Nancy Wilson

• “I’ve been happily married to my profession for years.” - Shirley Bassey

• “I do not have an act, I just do Eartha Kitt. I want to be whoever Eartha Kitt is until the gods take me wherever they take me.” - Eartha Kitt

“I can’t tell you in words what I want, but I’m wise enough to know that life doesn’t give us the dreams, as we dream them. And so I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but all I know is that force that’s inside me is pushing me towards something.” - Nina Simone

Nina Simone photographed by Jack Robinson, 1969.