How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?
NINA SIMONEMusic is the center of my life.
More Nina Simone Quotes
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I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.
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It’s a good time for black people to be alive.
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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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I’m a real rebel with a cause.
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Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage.
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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.
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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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To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that’s not what I play. I play black classical music.
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Every day has its emotional difficulties. I miss my mother whether I’m singing her music or not.
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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.
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You don’t have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.
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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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My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That’s how I see my voice.
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I’m just human, I have faults like anyone.
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There’s no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
NINA SIMONE