Happy birthday to activist artist, feminist and civil rights icon Nina Simone, who would have turned 90 today.
In 1965 Simone recorded her own harrowing rendition of "Strange Fruit," the powerful anti-lynching song penned by Abel Meeropol and made famous by Billie Holiday.
Simone once called it "about the ugliest song I have ever heard. Ugly in the sense that it is violent and tears at the guts of what white people have done to my people in this country.'”
Today’s #StrangeFruitMOTD is a haunting, a cappella rendition of Nina Simone's cover of the protest song originally made famous by Billie Holiday – "Strange Fruit." The stripped-down track allows the powerful lyrics to stand alone and “you can hear the talent and the emotion in her voice, making it a stunning listen.”
One day after her birthday, another Nina Simone-focused Strange Fruit Mention of the Day highlights her “five greatest isolated vocals”: “Billie Holiday is the artist...most intrinsically linked with ‘Strange Fruit’... During the ’60s, Simone paid tribute to Holiday by covering the classic. Sadly, the lyrics were still relevant as Black people fought for their rights to be recognized as equal citizens. She was a key player in the Civil Rights Movement, and the raw emotion in her voice throughout this isolated version of ‘Strange Fruit’ will touch your core.”