Nina Simone's artistic success is not dependent on one, singular detail; it's an amalgam. It's what led to her writing a confrontational song that she debuted in front of a white audience: "Four Women." This came a lot like a fire, similar to the one in Simone, that was to enrage.
Recently, a new movie has sparked some controversy--and the film hasn't' even premiered to the public. The issue of color is still at the heart of debate, as some feel that the actress Zoe Saldana doesn't measure to Simone, purely in matter of darkness and skin tone. They feel it may not have been that Simone was so much African-American as she was outwardly proud of it and her physical characteristics, and the community wonders how an actress of lighter skin tone can compare.
But the conversation goes further, beyond color. Simone proved herself an intelligent and mighty force that attracted some of African-American culture's most brilliant minds. Langston Hughes and James Baldwin were self-elected mentors after the death of Lady Day, a tragedy to incited their paternal instincts. Lorraine Hansberry, too, became a friend and peer, as both were coping with the struggles of early-found fame. Hansberry and Simone talked endlessly of strife, things dealing with the seeds of revolution in social America, and normally stayed topical.
And even as a performer, Simone was vocal to an audience that she would find withdrawn or, on the other hand, outwardly talkative at her concerts. She was quick to pick out anyone who wasn't connected to her performance--and it became clear that her audience was as much a part of the concert as her musical expertise. The intimacy couldn't be faked, it had to be there.
A critic for Philadelphia's Tribune explained, via the New Yorker, that Simone's singing "is to be brought into abrasive contact with the black heart and to feel the power and beauty which for centuries have beat there."
A Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed voice of the revolution, as she matriculated through the enlightening institution that is the 1960s, her incendiary attitudes manifested.
All these factors coincide with who Simone represented, and with the community to which she rose to the ranks as its most vocal member. Claudia Roth Pierpont outlines a massive history recounting the life of Nina Simone and her essential contributions to a divided America.
So as a movie makes its way through the channels to a release, the debate shouldn't encapsulate color but more so the entrancing connection Simone had with not just an audience but brilliant minds across the board. She's beyond the material world, she's a prophet.
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