1968: after King, Why? and ‘Nuff Said!
In 1968, the year Martin Luther King was murdered and Nina Simone answered with Why? (The King of Love Is Dead) and the live album ‘Nuff Said!, she speaks about Black identity, responsibility, and the cost of being needed. The tone is not polite activism. It is duty, said without apology, by a pianist who had already left the Juilliard path for the nightclub and then refused to keep the nightclub separate from history. Listen for the steel under the elegance. For her, conversation continues the stage, and the stage continues the street.
