“Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”: Nina Simone’s Africana Womanism

I had found it very interesting learning about Nina Simone.  By watching her performances it was clear to see just how deeply she cared about what she was singing about. It felt as if almost all of her songs were sung to bring awareness to the public about what is going on in the world when it comes to racism. She did not hold back when it came to singing about a political issue. It was put perfectly that “Nina Simone did not only entertain, rather she helped raise her listeners’ consciousness of various sociopolitical issues (e.g., anti-Black oppression and Africana womanist perspective), thus preparing them for political action” (247). Her words were so powerful and got a point across to anyone who was listening to her song. I was also very impressed when she performed ‘Mississippi God damn’ seeing that language like that was never used in music at that time. I think putting out that song really showed the world who Nina Simone really was and how much she was willing to do whatever it took to get the word out about racism.

It was also very interesting to see the article split all of Nina Simone’s songs into categories. Gendered racism, Anti-Black oppression, Revenge for oppression and more intense topics like depression and suicide were all sang about in Nina Simone’s music. I had actually really enjoyed learning about Nina until she had mentioned that she is for the idea of violence. She would talk about during her performances how she is ready to “kill” and did not want to hold back with the violence. I completely agree with her that what was being done to the black people at that time was extremely wrong, but fighting violence with violence will not solve anything and will just result in more issues. Overall, learning about Nina Simone was very interesting and her music seemed extremely powerful.