Carnegie Hall, 1964. And Nina Simone was not there to be polite.

“The name of this tune is ‘Mississippi Goddam.’ And I mean every word of it.”

Devastated by the Birmingham, Alabama church bombings and the Mississippi assassination of Medgar Evers, “all the truths I had denied to myself for so long rose up and slapped my face. I suddenly realized what it was to be black in America in 1963 – it came as a rush of fury, hatred and determination,” Nina wrote of composing this song. In spite of the predominantly white audiences at her shows, she channeled her righteous indignation into every performance of “Mississippi Goddam,” playing with a brute force that felt “like throwing 10 bullets back at the Klansmen.”

In the featured video shot at the Antibes Jazz Festival, quick cuts between Nina and her band drive the song’s tension and urgency, as well as highlight the preserved African lyrical tradition of call-and-response. With facial expressions and body language that reinforce, and even escalate every emotion in her words, this performance is just one look into why Nina Simone is so rightfully deserving of her title as “The High Priestess of Soul.”

𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘:
“Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don’t belong here
I don’t belong there
I’ve even stopped believing in prayer”

𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗥 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 𝗜𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗥 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬 | 𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗖𝗛 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 𝗜𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗥 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬