When I age into future decades, and look back to my 20s, Nina Simone will sing  the soundtrack. Aside from dedicating a year and a half to researching how she helped move the Civil Rights Movement with her music and her actions, Nina Simone helped politicize me. She brought me into my blackness in a way that no other theorist, or musician did.

Here is one of my favorite clips of Nina Simone. She is fly to the bone with her iconic hairstyle, anthropologie-b4-anthropologie dress, and out-a-sight earrings, all while singing, “Ain’t Got No… I’ve Got Life.”

Happy Birthday High Priestess of Soul!!!!