Maybe even more than being known for her music, Simone was renowned as being inherently offensive. She was loud, mean, unstable, and impulsive. But if rudeness is a personification of musicians genius, then Nina Simone was the brightest of them all.
I remember watching ‘Amadeus’ as a kid and telling my mom how annoying I thought Mozart was, and that his talent didn’t justify his carelessness. She told me that rudeness in musicians confirms their genius, that’s just the way it is. If my mom was right, similar behavior confirmed something different about Nina Simone. I mean lets be real, claiming that Simone was rude would be a gross understatement. Especially if you’ve done your research and know she used to routinely kick audience members out of her shows mid-performance if they were talking. Or that she actually shot her neighbor’s son because she didn’t like his laugh. But the point of this post is not to drone on about the million different ways Simone exercised her inherent offensiveness, but more so to understand the racial and gendered implications they assumed.
As Simone’s career progressed and her presence in the media became ever-present, it was common to see commentary on her being “a witch,” “angry,”or “unstable.” And on one end, she was definitely no saint (I mean she actually shot her neighbor’s child), but on the other most of the hate she received significantly outweighed the praise, putting her on a long list of unstable, celebrity narcissists exclusively reserved for black women.
When looking at the history of Simone’s hostility, it can actually seen that her behavior was not unique to the music industry at the time. She was only one of countless musicians of the period that refused to be defined by what the media wanted them to be. However, when artists like Gillespie or Park slammed the title “jazz artist”, humiliated a fan during a performance, expressed hostility to the press, or were just downright rude, they were revered as eccentric virtuosos. When Simone did any one of these things, she was deemed a villain. Or worse, a diva, aka a term used to disregard black women celebrities anger.
So maybe Simone’s behavior can be justified in a way, I mean how can one maintain societally accepted social graces when living during a time period where black women were taught to make apologies for just existing. Yeah she was outright rude to her fans, shot at her recording label’s executive (and when asked about it said she “tried to kill him but missed”), was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. However these aspects didn’t make her just…rude. They were integral to her presence in black activism and distinct ability to spread truth and inspire others.
Nina Simone Final Project 