Freedom is to me, No fear!

Nina Simone was blessed with the gift of music. Her fingers stroked masterfully the keys on the piano as her unique voice belted out words that signed her autograph into the souls of her audience. Feminine with an underlining baritone, her voice was one of a kind, it clung to memory once you heard it. So beautiful, you were drawn into her world when she sang. A place of darkness, pain and depression which she yearned to be saved from. Her music meant many things to those who listened but to her it was a scream for help with no voice. No one could hear her. But she lived as honest as no one else could dare speak.

A brave soul, yet lost.

Affluence — unknown to many in her time, a loving family and friends, a blossoming career, none of which could heal the wounds from her childhood trauma. Early in life she knew loneliness, brought on by racial segregation and an identity overshadowed by music. These adverse childhood experiences delivered her into a life of mental illness later diagnosed to be bipolar disorder and depression. Across her lifespan, without any engagement in high risk behavior, she was cursed. In the absence of medical expertise in those days, she was doomed to die miserably.

Then came the civil rights movement. This was her outlet. She seized it and became one powerful voice determined to wield her music as a weapon of vengeance for the horrid plight of black people in America. She proved dauntless to the point of extremism. It cost her — everything. White America was afraid of her and so they boycotted her music. Her marriage, wrought with domestic violence and extra-marital affairs, crumpled under its weight. Her relationship with her daughter, non-existent at best. She was torn. Tethering on the edge of sanity, she gave in and jumped.

Still fighting her inner demons, she sought solace in Liberia away from her former home she now called the United Snakes of America. Soon enough dwindling financial resources got her crawling back in rags with nothing else to offer but the music that started it all.

Her music saved her.

Nina settled in France where in the midst of friends, she lived out her life to old age making music again.

A true African queen fearless and free.