The capper of the current Simone moment will be her induction this month into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – although, if all it took was insouciance and a rebel streak to qualify, Simone could have been welcomed there years ago. So there’s a lot of reverence for Nina and a sense that she didn’t get her due during her lifetime.” “She wasn’t a household name like Aretha, who made more commercial choices like going on night-time talk shows. (It was followed by a less–well-received dramatized biopic, Nina, starring Zoe Saldana.) “I knew how much people in the music world loved Nina,” says Garbus. Two years ago, director Liz Garbus’ unflinching Simone documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone?, was nominated for an Oscar Lana Del Rey asked for a special screening, and Garbus heard that Beyoncé loved the film. The 2017 song joins the list of other recent hip-hop tracks that have sampled Simone including Kanye West’s “Blood on the Leaves,” Lil Wayne’s “Understood,” and West and Jay-Z’s “New Day.” As producer No ID told Rolling Stone last year about Jay-Z’s use of Simone samples on 4:44, “That’s the score to his life. Consider Jay-Z’s “The Story of O.J.”: The Grammy-nominated 4:44 track incorporates a sample of Simone’s “Four Women,” and the accompanying video even depicts a cartoon version of the late singer.

Nina Simone died 15 years ago this month, but judging on influence alone, it’s begun to seem like she never left.

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