February kicks off Black History Month which means that it’s time to look at influential Black figures through the years and really admire their accomplishments and acknowledge them like they haven’t been acknowledged before. And because of the recent Grammy awards, I would like to shine light on Black musicians over the years starting with Nina Simone. 

Nina Simone was a Black singer-songwriter most popular in the 60s. Nina Simone, also known as Eunice Kathleen Waymon, was born on February 21, 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina to Mary Kate Waymon and John Divine Waymon. As a kid, Simone loved Billie Holiday who was her biggest inspiration for music because of her reading of “Porgy”. She also developed a love of piano as a child which is the reason that she became a pianist as an adult. 

As an adult, Nina hit the music scene when she did a cover of “I Loves You Porgy” from George Gershwin's play, Porgy & Bess in 1959. She later released songs like “I Put A Spell on You” and “Feeling Good” that became hits. Even though she never expressed her troubles or necessarily seemed like she was hurting, things were going on when the curtains were closed. Nina Simone was physically and mentally abused by her husband, Andrew Stroud, which caused her to become mentally unstable. She ended up taking that anger out on her daughter, Lisa, who even at one point ended up running away from home at 14 because of her mother’s abuse. 

After all of Simone’s struggles, she died at the age of 70 in 2003. Her story shows that sometimes things happen behind the scenes even though we don’t know. We don’t always know everything that’s going on with a person. Nonetheless, Nina Simone was a great musical artist and has inspired many people like Christina Aguilera, Van Morrison, and Lupita Nyong’o even in death.