The Duality of Music

Dear Miss Simone,

In one of our first readings, “African-American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race”, Higginbotham says race can be used as “a discursive tool” for liberation and oppression. Watching the documentary on your life tonight, I was struck by the dual nature of music, as it served both to oppress and to liberate you and others. During your personal and musical career, your relationship to your husband and the music industry left you vulnerable to exploitation and oppression. In the process you were “isolated” and  “handled like a racehorse”, kept from a normal childhood and molded into a performer. When your husband assumed the role of manager, he gained control over your music and life. Your internal desires to play classical music and express your identity were suppressed to cater to the demands of the consumers. This then locked you into playing jazz and blues while tirelessly upholding the façade of a performer. I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to “sacrifice [everything] for the music”. Despite this oppression, you were able to appropriate music as a tool for your own liberation, and the liberation of others in your race. For you, playing the piano was an expression of instinctual identity, as soon as you sat down at the piano “[your] fingers could fly”; even the movement of playing was described as a liberating act. Music allowed you to transcend barriers of race and gender not only to feel “free”, but also to gain economic independence and physical mobility. You began preforming and singing in a bar for your first job and were able to support your family financially. Later on in your career, your economic success allowed you to travel and leave the ‘prison’ that the U.S. had become and discover community and “the world of [your] dreams” in Africa. Lastly, music gave you a platform and made you into a conduit for others in the Civil Rights Movement. Your work inspired curiosity and self-love in others, and became the soundtrack of black liberation movements. You are iconic as a musician, activist, and person. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Sophie Devincenti

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