Before proceeding with a musical analysis of select songs from Nina Simone’s In Concert, I wish to first discuss my inspiration for working Simone’s anger into the narrative of her Civil Rights-era music, both politically and musically. I was heavily inspired by the article “The Uses of Anger” by Audre Lorde. Using specific anecdotes of Lorde’s experiences in academia, this piece discusses the practical use of anger as a response and resistance against racism from an intersectional lens. Applying intersectional thought to discord surrounding social progress, this essay addresses the ways that women of color create constructive dialogue regarding the issue of racism, more specifically how anger in discussion is wrongly deemed as negative and destructive to progress. Lorde wants to reclaim anger as positive and essential to resisting oppression, as she insists “My anger is a response to racist attitudes, to the actions and presumptions that arise out of those attitudes” (Lorde 278). Nina Simone, a women of color during a period of widespread racial discourse, uses her anger almost identically.
I cannot conduct an analysis of Nina Simone’s response to racist musical categorization without acknowledging her anger, more importantly how she chose to utilize it as a tool that worked against her audience’s preconceived notions of black female musicianship. Simone’s anger in response to racism leading up to and during the 1960s manifested itself in both political and musical resistance, since she express anger against both the injustices plaguing the African-American community and also the white patriarchal music industry for devaluing her abilities as singer and classical pianist. In her own words, Simone argues, “Calling me a jazz singer was a way of ignoring my musical background because I didn’t fit into the white ideas of what a black performer should be” (Simone 69). The anger that stems from this unfair categorization is a direct response to racist attitudes that surrounded her at this time, which connects Nina Simone’s 1960s music to Audre Lorde’s essay on the potential benefits of using anger as a tool for social justice.