NEW YORK, March 18 — In New York, an off-Broadway show is bringing queen of the blues Nina Simone back to life — but backstage, a battle has been brewing over rights to the anti-racist icon’s songs.
The California attorney says since 1988 he has administered the artist’s catalogue — she granted many of her rights to a charitable trust — and has called the musical “fictitious” and “superficial,” saying it “does not do her justice.”explores the life of the artist born Eunice Waymon in 1933 in North Carolina.
It also approaches the singer’s radicalism: “Nina Simone was saying ‘Black Lives Matter’ before it was even an expression,” Michelle said.Mississippi Goddamin response to a 1963 fire set by Ku Klux Klan members at an Alabama church, in which four young Black girls died. “Nina was a Black woman and this piece was written by and stars a Black woman who wanted to pay homage to an icon that belongs to Black cultural history,” producer Rashad V. Chambers said.