Thank you, Miss Simone, for sitting down with us tonight...

We are delighted you managed to fit us into your tight schedule today, and I'll try to keep this short.

Guitarist Al Schackman once expressed his view that you metamorphosize pieces based on your experiences. Looking back at how your musical and social careers were deeply intertwined--pushing through new struggles while simultaneously producing new music--do you think you would have been exposed to similar social and political experiences without the music? If music did not work out, would you have been able to find an alternate outlet to become a social justice warrior?

You've written that Mr. Stroud would "wrap around [you] like a snake," constricting your life down to work, work, and more work while suffocating you from ever taking a deep breath. Despite this--or perhaps by cause of it--you've said that he was your best manager and have repeatedly asserted that you loved him regardless of the beatings and the need for love affairs on the side to satiate both of your personal needs. If you were to do this again, would you have left him sooner in pursuit of your own personal happiness, even if this meant the possibility of not having as much exposure and perhaps less of the fame to help you fight for Civil Rights?

In regards to your move to Liberia and divorcing Mr. Stroud, you shared that you were finally happy, home and free there. For you, freedom means to not have fear, but without music during that time, what granted you that invincibility during your stay in Africa? How were you able to finally able to turn your eyes, voice and music away from the horrors in America and put yourself first?

Thank you for your time, for your work and for your power Miss Simone.





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