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To be young, gifted and black!

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
Gifted
Black
Young

More quotes by Nina Simone

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To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.
Nina Simone
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That's a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
Nina Simone
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I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping.
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
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I try to swim every damn day I can, and I've learned to scuba dive and snorkel.
Nina Simone
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There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
Nina Simone
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I look forward to doing my own show, not someone else's. That's always been my dream.
Nina Simone
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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
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I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.
Nina Simone
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I don't like to go to strange places. I was in Italy for about five hours on my way to Africa.
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'm a nut for Bach as a composer.
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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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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The Beatles are lucky, very lucky. But what has happened to them has nothing to do with them, in a sense. They came along at the right time. Attention was focused on them. They've had the chance to grow in almost any direction they wanted. Very lucky. They are not exceptionally talented.
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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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.
Nina Simone
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What is love but a prelude to sorrow...with heartache ahead for your goal.
Nina Simone
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I believe the time will come when the whole definition of pop music will change. It will get to the point where a song will not be a good song until it has a high level of creativity in writing and performance. In other words, in order to be popular, songs will have to meet these high standards.
Nina Simone
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This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.
Nina Simone