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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

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Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.
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This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.
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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.
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I think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate the United States being on top forever.
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I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.
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You can't be different if you look at it. Being gifted is different. I had that in my piano playing. I'm very thankful for that. I'm very aware of that. The style and what I fed is just me. I never worked at it. It just happened.
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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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Desegregation is a joke.
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It's logical that people from bad times will reflect their feelings in their communication. Music is part of the communication. If you lived it, you can do it.
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I know I'm different, but I don't think about it.
Nina Simone
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Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, a song that was written for Simone, she confronted the band's lead singer, Eric Burdon. So you're the honky, she said, who stole my song and got a hit out of it?
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This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.
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 don't like to go to strange places.
Nina Simone
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I can't stand loud guitars that make me deaf.
Nina Simone
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I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be
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 feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they're not alone.
Nina Simone
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You don't have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.
Nina Simone