Sometimes I sound like gravel, and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream.
Nina SimoneRead
It's an artist's duty to reflect the times in which we live.
Interpretation
Artists have a responsibility to express the societal and cultural issues of their time.
Nina Simone's quote emphasizes the important role artists play in society. Through their work, artists capture and comment on the realities of the world around them, reflecting the struggles, triumphs, and complexities of the human experience as shaped by contemporary events and social issues. This engagement not only holds a mirror to society but also encourages dialogue and reflection among audiences.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the role of artists in social movements.
Sometimes I sound like gravel, and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream.
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
I only knew classical music, which to me was the only true music. The only way I could survive at the bar was to mix the classical music with popular songs, and that meant I had to sing. What happened was that I discovered I had a voice plus the talent to mix classical music together with more popular songs, which at the time I detested.
Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.
I didn't get interested in music. It was a gift from God.
This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.
When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written.
Gay writers now have both a sense of history and the fables that allows them to dwell in the realms of the ridiculous and at the same time talk seriously about things.
Fiction is burdened for me with a sense of duty.
Deep Listening is listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, or one's own thoughts as well as musical sounds. Deep Listening represents a heightened state of awareness and connects to all that there is. As a composer I make my music through Deep Listening
I often make films about subjects I don't really know much about. Maybe it's laziness, but I don't go in there having done a tonne of research; the research happens while I'm making the film.
As an actor, you can't just imitate someone. You have to get under her skin.
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