Nina Simone is amongst the remarkable musicians and performers, who contributed to the creation of history and thus themselves became historical figures. Although her style can be barely characterized, as her songs had obvious elements of jazz, soul his hop, R&B, folk and gospel, Simone received Grammy awards fifteen times for the unique contribution to the enrichment of our musical legacy. The central argument of the present paper is that Simone’s music is based greatly on her own experience, in particular on the involvement in the civil rights movement, combined with her African American identity, so it is possible to say that the musician was “living black” and “singing black”. Nina Simone was actually born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina in 1933, to a large family of eight children. Due to the fact that her parents were affiliated with Methodism, she began playing the piano in the local Methodist church, where great attention was paid to every person with music and vocal gifts. Simone’s mother, Mary Kate Waymon, was a Methodist minister, whereas her father worked as a barber and had serious health problems, so the girl since her early years learned the pattern of female leadership. Although the family was affected by poverty, each of the eight children received enough parental attention and support; Simone’s talent’s were nurtured and developed as well. At the age of ten, she first participated in a classical music concert. As Hampton writes, “During her performance, her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back of the hall to make way to white people. Simone refused to play until her parents were moved back. This incident contributed to her later involvement in the civil rights movement” (Hampton, p. 39). Simone’s mother, a community activist, who also worked as a maid, convinced her employer to invest in Eunice’s talent, so the girl received an opportunity to take piano lessons. Later, the community fund, organized by Mrs Waymon, allowed the young prodigy to study at the Julliard School of music in New York (Feldstein, p. 95; Simone and Cleary, p. 42). At the age of seventeen, Simone was expected to support her family financially, so she moved to Philadelphia, where she lived on her own, taught music and accompanied singers. Further, she tried to enter the Curtis Institute to continue her education but was rejected for being a woman of colour, as she believed. This further made her a radical opponent of institutional racism, which was an American reality of the 1950s-1970s. In the 1950s, she was forced to perform in nightclubs to earn her living; as her employer demanded, she played the piano and sang blues and jazz. In order to prevent her mother from learning about her occupation, Eunice took the stage name “Nine Simone”. “Nina” can be translated from Spanish as “little girl”, whereas the surname “Simone” was taken after famous French actress Simone Signoret (Simone and Cleary, p. 49; Brooks, p.122). In the year 1958, Simone’s life drastically changed after she recorded a cover of George Gershwin’s “I Loves You, Porgy”, which became a Billboard Top 40 hit of the United States. Her album of blues works entitled “Little Girl Blue” followed very s