"Four Women" Cover by Kelly Price, Marsha Ambrosius, Jill Scott & Ledisi

On the blog-site, shine.forharriet.com, editor Kimberly Foster posted a video clip from the 2011 Black Girls Rock Awards. Foster captioned it, "four of our favorite songstresses performed a striking rendition of Nina Simone's 'Four Women.' The women offered mind-blowing dynamics, and Ledisi's ending was the perfect punctuation." When I visited the site, the video of their performance wasn't working, so, above, I have linked to an audio of it on Youtube. Foster did, however, include this screenshot. 

The choice of having four different black women sing each of the verses is an example of performance of performance. Simone, performed the four women all by herself - giving us the sense that she embodies all of those stories because black women, regardless of our skin tone or hair textures, are the descendants and amalgamation of all these traits. We range internally against the spectrum of being human, just as our hair and skin colors range from the richest blacks and browns to that of porcelain white. Nina's voice brought that to life, and now these fabulous divas pay homage and add a new dimension to the performance of blackness by soulfully sharing their interpretations.