Nina Simone
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Tara Betts
Tara Betts discusses her newest collection, Break the Habit, the burden placed on black women artists to be both artist and activist, and why writing is rooted in identity.
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Mood Music
At Largehearted Boy, essayist, literary experimentalist, and scholar Mary Capello shares an annotated playlist for her new essay collection, Life Breaks In (University of Chicago Press). She describes mood as the “companion and muse” for her writing: If there is…
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America Again
I felt urgently that it was the moment to tell the story of what I’ve learned about American music—or maybe about being an American.
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Song of the Day: “Black and Blue”
Given the anarchic, traumatic, and deeply worrying events of recent months, some might begin to lose hope. However, music—and especially jazz, the most particularly American music—never seems to lose its power to soothe and calm us. Louis Armstrong, in a special song that…
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The Rumpus Interview with Max Ritvo
Max Ritvo passed away on August 23, 2016. Earlier this summer, he spoke with Sarah Blake about his debut collection Four Reincarnations, writing with and about cancer, and how language is a game.
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This Week in Posivibes: Songs for Survival
In addition to his song “Spiritual,” which deals with the issue of police brutality, Jay Z has released a playlist of songs to get us through the crushing violence lately exposed by social media. “Songs for Survival” includes music by Beyoncé, Curtis Mayfield, James Brown,…
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Broadway-Blues-Bad Casting
Ever since Zoe Saldana was set to play Nina Simone in the upcoming biopic Nina, controversy has surrounded the casting choice. Writing in the Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates says that the issue isn’t just about Saldana’s lighter skin tone, but the…
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat With Camille Rankine
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Camille Rankine about her new book Incorrect Merciful Impulses, history, and trying to be a writer every day.
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Diamonds & Rust: Let’s Revel in This Messy Splendor
Refusing to be tragic, and eventually, within the deep lost, the deepest I’ve known, comes rebirth.
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What Happened, Miss Simone?
The much-anticipated documentary of soul genius Nina Simone is available from Netflix starting today, with its rare archival footage and new interviews with family and colleagues, including the artist’s daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly, and music director, Al Schackman. As the date has approached,…
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Diamonds and Rust: Nostalgia, Form, and Noise
There’s always that longing to say everything and nothing at once, that yearning for the moment I forget I am myself.
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Art as Witness
“I believe Nina Simone tried to build that gun because that night she realized what all other-ed bodies eventually realize: a gun was already at her head. She feared a song might not be enough. The fact that this gun…