The Genius and the Rage: The Tragic Story of Nina Simone

From the series: Legends of the Music World. Part 1.

The Genius and the Rage: The Tragic Story of Nina Simone.

Eunice Kathleen Waymon was born in Tryon, North Carolina, in 1933—a gifted Black girl in a Jim Crow town that made it clear she didn’t belong. But from the moment her fingers graced the piano keys, something otherworldly happened. By age three, she could play by ear. By her teens, she had mastered Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. She dreamed of becoming the first Black classical pianist to grace Carnegie Hall. The world, however, had other plans.
It is impossible to tell the story of Nina Simone without telling the story of America. The racism wasn’t just in the shadows—it was in her face, in her paycheck, in her shattered dreams. She applied to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and was rejected. They never said why, but everyone, Nina included, knew the reason. She was a Black girl from the South. Her skin, not her skill, had closed the door.
So she pivoted. Out of survival. Out of necessity.
She played in smoky bars under the name "Nina Simone" to hide her new profession from her devout mother, who called it "the devil's work." But Nina was no devil. She was a force. Her sound; blues, jazz, gospel, folk, soul, and classical, didn’t fit in a box. It never would.
By the 1960s, her voice became the soundtrack of the civil rights movement. Songs like Mississippi Goddam were scorching indictments of racism, written after the Birmingham church bombing that killed four little Black girls. Nina Simone didn’t just sing protest songs—she bled them. She lived them.
And she paid the price.
Radio stations banned her. Promoters dropped her. Some of her own people, terrified of her militancy, distanced themselves. But she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. To be Black in America, to be a woman, to be righteous and unafraid; this was her war.
But her fiercest battles weren’t only with society. They were within the walls of her home and within her own mind.
Nina’s marriage to Andy Stroud, a former New York police detective, was brutal. He became her manager but also her tormentor. He controlled her career, her finances, her movements—and he beat her. Suddenly, there was rage in her music. It wasn’t just about America. It was about the men who tried to break her. It was about love, betrayal, and captivity.
She stayed. For years. Out of duty, out of confusion, out of the same complicated emotional web that traps so many women in abusive relationships.
She also battled undiagnosed bipolar disorder for much of her life. The volatility, the mood swings, the disappearances, the on-stage tirades—people whispered about her being “difficult,” but they didn’t know the whole story. She was fighting an invisible war inside her own mind while carrying the weight of a nation on her shoulders.
In the 1970s, Nina left America. She drifted through Liberia, Switzerland, France. Sometimes broke, sometimes adored, always restless. Fame never filled the void. Love never softened the rage. She missed her daughter’s childhood. She alienated friends. She cursed at audiences who came expecting entertainment but received truth instead.
And yet, her genius never abandoned her.
Listen to Four Women, and you will hear America’s caste system stripped bare. Listen to Feeling Good, and you will hear defiance masquerading as joy. Nina Simone could whisper like a lover, roar like a prophet, and play the piano with a precision that could have taken her to Carnegie Hall, had the gates been open.
In her later years, she found some peace—diagnosed, medicated, somewhat steadied. She performed in Europe until her death in 2003. Just days before she died, the Curtis Institute of Music, the one that had rejected her, awarded her an honorary degree. Some would call it justice. Others would call it too late.
Nina Simone was never fully embraced in her own time. Too Black. Too angry. Too ungovernable. But today, she is everywhere. Her songs haunt movie soundtracks, echo in political rallies, live inside the voices of artists like Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys, John Legend, and countless others. She didn’t just open doors; she tore them off the hinges.
Her life was a symphony of brilliance and brutality, of soaring heights and searing lows. She never got the America she deserved, but America got the Nina Simone it needed.
The High Priestess of Soul.
The Voice of the Movement.
The Genius We Tried to Contain.
And Couldn’t.

She won.
~∆~

Lyrics:
Love me, love me, love me, say you do
Let me fly away with you
For my love is like the wind
And wild is the wind
Give me more than one caress
Satisfy this hunger
Let the wind blow through your heart
For wild is the wind
You touch me
I hear the sound of mandolins
You kiss me
With your kiss, my life begins
You're spring to me
All things to me
Don't you know you're life itself
Like a leaf clings to a tree
Oh my darling, cling to me
For we're creatures of the wind
And wild is the wind
So wild is the wind
You touch me
I hear the sound of mandolins
You kiss me
With your kiss, my life begins
Daddy, you're spring to me
All things to me
Don't you know you're life itself
Like a leaf clings to a tree
Oh my darling, cling to me
For we're creatures of the wind
And wild is the wind
So wild is the wind
Wild is the wind
Wild is the wind
Wild is the wind
—∆—
Songwriters: Ned Washington and Dimitri Tiomkin.

Until we meet again…

Love and light, ❤️ 🎵

René