Nina Simone By Brenda Flanagan Analysis

The first lecture that I attended was Brenda Flanagan’s talk about the life of Nina Simone through her memoir and the songs of Simone. Before this talk, I had never heard of Nina Simone, but I enjoyed getting to learn about her life and experiences through someone who had first-hand experience with her during one of the high points of her career. I really liked that through the presentation, Flanagan incorporated some of Simone’s songs in order to frame them within the historical context of the time and explain some of the meaning behind them. It made the music more impactful and understandable because of the movement that was happening in the United States at that time. Nina Simone’s lyrics were filled with passion for the topics she wrote
Through some of the experiences that Flanagan had with Simone, such as the times when she would be angrily told to leave the room while reading the list of things her daughter had done while she was gone, it put some of this into context. From being introduced to Nina Simone’s life through this presentation, I did like the mental health perspective, as well as some of the outside influences that made Simone so angry and sad. Her experiences with racism as a child made her upset, which took hold in her mind as the issues that she dealt with her whole life. Nina Simone was engaged with discrimination from a young age and continued to be throughout her life, so her anger and fear were a result. I liked how Flanagan provided a different perspective on Simone’s mental health through her career, interpreting it instead as being a result of the racism she experienced. Simone’s experiences with mental health were otherwise just labeled as bipolar, but Flanagan knew her to be a different person. Nina Simone’s personality came across very well in Flanagan’s depiction of her and her life, partially through the personal experiences she shared with