On this day, seventeen years ago- Miss Nina Simone passed away in France, at the age of 70.
When remembering Nina Simone, I often think back on this particular interview from a 1992 documentary by Peter Rodis. The intensity of her words, the emotion in her voice and the ever changing expression on her face, tell us hundreds of stories in the span of a mere minute.
Incredibly moving and powerful.
Nina Simone, when asked about what Freedom means to her:
“It's just a feeling. It's just a feeling.
It's like, how do you tell somebody how it feels to be in love?
How are you going to tell anybody who has not been in love, how it feels to be in love?
You cannot do it to save your life. You can describe things, but you can't tell them.
But you know it when it happens. That's what I mean by free.
I've had a couple times on stage when I really felt free and that's something else. That's really something else!
I'll tell you what freedom is to me: NO FEAR!
I mean really, no fear.
If I could have that half of my life. No fear.
Lots of children have no fear.
That's the only way I can describe it.
That's not all of it, but it something to really, really feel.
Like a new way of seeing.
Like a new way of seeing something."
Freedom / ˈfriːdəm /
1. The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
2. The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
xez