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Then came a show-stopping version of Four Women, in which Moses, Maxine, Mvula and Bailey Rae each took one of the four different characters in Simone’s famous 1966 song, each of which represented stereotypes about African-American women in society.
The evening seemed to climax with the final whole vocal ensemble joining the orchestra for Mississippi Goddamn, probably Simone’s greatest protest song, written in 1963 in the wake of the lynching of Emmett Till and Medgar Evans in Mississippi and the bombing of a church in Alabama which killed four children.
Mississippi Goddam at the Royal Festival Hall review: thunderous Nina Simone tribute Rarely has the Royal Festival Hall seen an encore like this.
At first, as the performers came out sing her songs with the Nu Civilisation Orchestra, it seemed like a hard act to live up to, as a few sound problems kept Ni Maxine’s version of I Loves You Porgy and Tony Njoku’s I Wish I Knew How on the quiet side.
Mvulva as the enslaved but strong Aunt Sarah singing “My skin is black, my arms are long, my hair is woolly, my back is strong,” followed by Maxine as the mixed-race and oppressed Saffronia, who delighted the crowd when she stumbled over the lyrics but improvised brilliantly instead.
