Before Beyoncé, before Lauryn Hill, there was Nina: Juilliard-trained, fiercely Black, and an unfiltered genius who seemed seconds from either a standing ovation or total implosion.
Trailer for “What Happened, Miss Simone?”
You Can’t Make This Sh*t Up
- In 1967, Nina Simone walked off stage mid-performance at the Newport Jazz Festival because the audience wasn’t “ready” for her message. She just left.
- She once said Martin Luther King Jr. was “too soft” and publicly supported violent revolution over peaceful protest. She wrote “Mississippi Goddam” the night Medgar Evers was murdered.
- After leaving the U.S., she lived in Liberia, Switzerland, Barbados, and France—sometimes squatting in homes, sometimes smashing pianos mid-performance, often estranged from her own daughter.
Watch “What Happened, Miss Simone?”
You can watch “What Happened, Miss Simone?” on Netflix.
Ratings:
- My Rating: 91/100
- IMDB Rating: 7.6/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: 85/100 (Users); 90/100 (Critics)
Director’s Note: Directed by Liz Garbus, who also did “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” (which I rank 91/100) and “Becoming Cousteau”. The runtime is 102 minutes.
Release Date: January 22, 2015 (Sundance Film Festival); June 26, 2015 (Netflix)
My Review of “What Happened, Miss Simone?”
The Setup
This is the story of Nina Simone—classical pianist, jazz legend, protest singer, mother, and exile. The doc doesn’t just trace her rise and fall; it dives into her rage, her brilliance, and her battle with bipolar disorder.
Her daughter Lisa Simone Kelly provides intimate details that reveal how fame, civil rights activism, and mental illness collided in ways both spectacular and tragic.
More Highlights from the Doc
- Her early dream was to be the first Black classical concert pianist in America. When Curtis Institute rejected her—possibly due to race—her life path flipped overnight.
- The doc covers her evolution from supper club star to civil rights radical. She went from playing Carnegie Hall to singing “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” to stadiums full of activists.
- We hear private audio tapes where she questions her sanity and expresses despair over being misunderstood by both white audiences and the Black Power movement.
- Lisa, her daughter, shares how Simone’s struggle with bipolar disorder often turned violent—once Nina tried to stab a business associate in the neck with a letter opener.
- She claimed to be willing to kill for civil rights. In one interview, she said she wanted to learn how to shoot a gun “just in case.”
Cameos
- Interviews with Angela Davis, Stanley Crouch, and Dick Gregory help frame Simone’s political journey.
- Archival appearances from James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, who were both close with Nina.
Lesser-Known Details from the Doc
- Simone was diagnosed with bipolar disorder late in life, though signs of mania and depression appeared for decades.
- She once performed for Idi Amin while living in Africa—without realizing the scale of his crimes at the time.
- She’d sometimes stop playing mid-song to lecture the audience if she felt they were being disrespectful—or not paying enough attention.
- The Curtis Institute of Music gave her an honorary degree in 2003, the same year she died.
Wrap Up
Nina Simone didn’t want to entertain—she wanted to shake people awake. This doc does the same. Watch it.
Thanks for reading!
Rob Kelly, Chief Maniac, Daily Doc