Nina Simone

As a young African American woman, Nina Simone faced rejection in various aspects of her life. In the article “Nina Simone’s Time Is Now, Again” By Salamishah Tillet, Tillet goes into depth on Nina’s life and how the interdependent relationship of race, politics, and music played a role in molding her life and career as a black woman. Nina Simone had a rough childhood that lead her to experience race, politics, and music differently than from the people around her. Her life experiences caused her to understand what it meant to be a black woman in a time where being this way was looked down upon. The world had yet to embrace to the fullest extent the empowerment of African Americans and the role their women played during the movement. This made
Nina’s life extremely difficult and the spreading of her message that much more challenging. Nina Simone stood for equality and used her voice to spread awareness of the struggles that people of color faced during 60’s and how far we still needed to come. Race, politics, and music did play a major role in Simone’s life based on the analysis of the song “Four Women” by Nina Simone and the article “Nina Simone’s Time is Now, Again” by Salamishah Tillet.
Due to Nina Simone’s race, life came different to her.
It didn't come easy, from a young age she was faced with so much rejection and in that rejection she found the determination to pursue her dreams. Through her experiences as an African American woman she had to fight in order to be heard. In the song ‘Four Women” Nina gives insight on the perspectives of women of different races and how differently they were viewed by society. With her emphasis on Peaches and how cruelly people like her are viewed. This was an outcry for women of color who were being treated unjustly based on the color of their skin. In Tillet’s article, she mentions an interview with Director Gina Prince Bythewood where she says, “During her time, Nina was unapologetically black and proud of who she was, and it reflected in the authenticity of songs like “Four Women”. Tillet uses this interview to create emphasis on the pride with which Nina carried herself. Nina always held her head high regardless of her race and instead was more interested in the message her audience was receiving. Nina uses her voice to send a clear warning that world was not head in the right direction and instead should focus their energies on love and unity. She used her voice as the voice of an African American woman to mediate for audiences of different races so that they can listen and experience first hand the reality of the African American
experience.
During the time Nina was very limited because of the social hearchiery that she lived in. Nina was highly interested in politics and sought out to establish relationships with people that were involved in the movement to empower African Americans. Through her experiences with these people she found more inspiration to continue to deliver her message more effectively and efficiently. After meeting these people Nina shifted her musical style and became more concentrated on important civil issues that her people faced at the time. In Tillet’s article, she gives an example on how the people that Nina met influenced her styles, “To further music career, Simone moved back to New York, where she befriended the activist-writers Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Malcolm X. Influenced by these political friendships and the momentum of civil rights movement itself, Simone went on to compose “Mississippi Goddam””. Nina is using her artistic exposure of larger audiences to bring forth current events targeted towards African Americans which were otherwise being ignored by the general public. Nina Simone protested these acts of violence by using her voice to stage her protest.