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Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

Nina Simone

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Nina Simone
Age: 75 †
Born: 1933
Born: February 21
Died: 2008
Died: April 21
Composer
Jazz Pianist
Recording Artist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Tryon
North Carolina
Eunice Kathleen Waymon
High Priestess of Soul
Black
Music
People
Classical
Define
Racism
Jazz
Term
White

More quotes by Nina Simone

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My job is not done. I address my songs now to the third world. I am popular all over Asia and Africa and the Middle East, not to speak of South Africa, where I'm trying to go to see Nelson Mandela.
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Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel... through music... Whew... you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment.
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I feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they're not alone.
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Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking.
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Anything human can be felt through music, which means that there is no limit to the creating that can be done with music. You can take the same phrase from any song and cut it up so many different ways - it's infinite. It's like God... you know?
Nina Simone
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I love the classics but there are many new ideas to be made into reality. I'd rather be concerned with my own thing. There are many masters of classical piano so I'll leave it to them.
Nina Simone
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I only knew classical music, which to me was the only true music. The only way I could survive at the bar was to mix the classical music with popular songs, and that meant I had to sing. What happened was that I discovered I had a voice plus the talent to mix classical music together with more popular songs, which at the time I detested.
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I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs... and good ones.
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I believe in racial memory too. I'm sure I've got ancient African blood in me that has something to do with what I am.
Nina Simone
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I do love to sing Jacques Brel songs, intensely. I get terribly excited, just by reading a couple of lines in any one of his songs.
Nina Simone
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I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.
Nina Simone
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Many times I feel different like a different person.
Nina Simone
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I don't like to go to strange places.
Nina Simone
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Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage.
Nina Simone
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When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist.
Nina Simone
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You don't have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.
Nina Simone
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There are all kinds of things that can be done. You can change rhythms, you can change chords, you can change whole concepts. But it will only work, on a record or in a performance, if you can make the people buy it.
Nina Simone
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My love is like the wind and wild is the wind. Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness. Let the wind blow through your heart for wild is the wind.
Nina Simone
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You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.
Nina Simone
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I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.
Nina Simone