Please join the COA family in welcoming our newest writer, Nia Simone! Nia’s bio will be available shortly on our About page. Subscribe to COA so you don’t miss her upcoming debut piece ‘Here Comes the Sun.’

Q: Your name seems either to be an homage, or a real giant coincidence. Nina Simone was a talented, outspoken, incomparable figure in her time. And a legend in ours. What sort of influence has she had on you?

I like to call her my kinda-sorta-maybe namesake. If Kwanzaa didn’t have a principle named “Nia”, I probably would have been named after her. She’s dope; she’s the ultimate innovator. One thing that I’ve learned from her is how to have the courage to be yourself in a world that would rather you fit into a mold of what an “acceptable” woman should be. Even though she dealt with a lot of self-hate and racial discrimination, she eventually grew to who she was destined to be and was dedicated to living her truth. I’m dedicated to that as well; living my truth. I hope that one day I’ll influence a girl that had the same insecurities I had to have that epiphany; that it’s okay to accept themselves. I just hope that one day they’ll do her biopic right because she deserves to have her story told the right way.
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