Listen: Radiolab on how Nina Simone predicted this moment
Tracie Hunt talks “Backlash Blues” and more.
This weekend, as protests surged outside of her home, Radiolab producer Tracie Hunt spent time listening to Nina Simone, and was moved by how deeply the singer and composer’s work from fifty years ago spoke to the present moment. “How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?” she recalls Simone asking. “That, to me, is the definition of an artist.” Hear Hunt speak on how Nina Simone still interrogates – and mourns – the ways Black Americans are abused and oppressed.