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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

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

Address Job Myself Popular See Song
How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?
NINA SIMONE

Artist Reflection Time
Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.
NINA SIMONE

Breathe Children Life Music Myself
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.
NINA SIMONE

Feeling Moments Music Vibration World Yourself
Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things – all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.
NINA SIMONE

Description Invention Music Myself Play Thinking Way
I demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.
NINA SIMONE

Day Demand Myself Perfection Practice
It’s time to take a look at my failures and stop calling them successes. Now I can start working at something that can use me best.
NINA SIMONE

Failure Start Success Time Work
I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.
NINA SIMONE

Fear Freedom Myself
I think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. I don’t think the black people are going to rise at all; I think most of them are going to die.
NINA SIMONE

Death Poor Rich Rise Thinking
I’m just human, I have faults like anyone.
NINA SIMONE

Human Mistake Myself
This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.
NINA SIMONE

Live World Yourself
Life is short. People are not easy to know. They’re not easy to know, so if you don’t tell them how you feel, you’re not going to get anywhere, I feel.
NINA SIMONE

Easy Feeling Life Myself People
Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.
NINA SIMONE

Depression Slave Sorrow Time
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
NINA SIMONE

Black Definition Myself People
You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.
NINA SIMONE

Artist Help Reflection Time
It is difficult to retain your standards with the pressure of trying to make money, which always has its rules. It’s hard to walk the tightrope of doing what you think is your best and making money at it.
NINA SIMONE

Difficult Hard Money Rule Standard Yourself

I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I’m not going.

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I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I’m not going.

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