Cedella Marley, Queen Ifrica, Etana For Stephen Marley’s ‘Reggae Tribute To Nina Simone’ EP

Cedella Marley, Queen Ifrica and Etana are among the seven women handpicked by Medication singer Stephen Marley for his latest production, a seven-track Reggae EP dubbed Celebrating Nina: A Reggae Tribute to Nina Simone.

The EP is set for release on March 18 on the Marley family’s Ghetto Youths International label.

The eight-time Grammy Award winner, who is Bob and Rita Marley’s second son, said that he chose to work exclusively with female artists on the project as they were not only strong and beautiful, but also because “their voices do Nina’s work and Reggae solid”.

The seven-track EP features songs written or previously covered by Nina, seven being a significant number to the Who Colt The Game singer, who asserts that his iconic father “had seven sons”.

The EP’s first single Four Women, from Simone’s 1966 Wild Is the Wind album, which was covered by Fyah Mumma Queen Ifrica, and its accompanying music video, were released on April 26 last year, the anniversary of the 1969 recording of the Jazz icon’s Live from Berkley album.  Queen Ifrica is a longstanding fan of Nina Simone and her iconic Jazz catalogue and in the past covered the late artist’s Mr. Bojangles.

The song Four Women was written by Nina partially to expose the “colour caste system” and the plight of women in the United States in her time.

Two-time Reggae Grammy nominee Etana has covered Young, Gifted and Black, the second single on the EP, a song Nina was inspired to write, to uplift black children  after hearing African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry addressing a group of students as “young, gifted and Black.”

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To Be Young, Gifted and Black, was originally released in 1969.   It was covered by Bob Andy and Marcia Griffiths in 1970, as Young, Gifted and Black and upon its release, soared to number five on the UK charts.

Stephen’s elder sister Cedella Marley, was given the task of covering Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, a song which Nina initially recorded in 1964, and according to Stephen, “that song is very fitting for Cedella (who) as a strong woman in a man’s world, she is misunderstood sometimes”.

“This project is about preserving Nina Simone’s legacy, passing it on to younger generations, including my children, because you don’t often find music this substantial,” Marley told Billboard Magazine.

“When we started the project, we reached out to Nina’s daughter (Lisa Simone Kelly) and to the Nina Simone Foundation to establish a connection; we want to donate a portion of the proceeds to the things that she was all about,” he explained.

Simone, who was abused severely by her second husband, grappled with alcoholism and suffered for years with an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, lost her battle with breast cancer on April 21, 2003.   She requested in her will, that her estate’s residuary gifts be held in trust to create a charity to support the musical education of black children in Africa.

The EP also comprises Don’t Explain covered by Canadian singer Melanie Fiona and No Good Man by the UK’s Terri Walker,  Both songs were themselves 1960s cover versions of love songs popularised by legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday in the 1940s.

Here Comes The Sun, which Simone recorded in 1971 as the title track to her 13th studio album, was covered by Joss Stone, while Maya Azucena covered the highly popular Mr. Bojangles, which was recorded by Simone in 1971.

According to the Who Colt The Game singer, he started working on the Nina Simone tribute EP more than five years ago, and was motivated by his admiration for her work.

“Music from the past, artists like Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, speak to my mood, my soul,” Stephen told Billboard.

“Because of the racism they faced years ago, you can hear the commitment they had towards pursuing their talent and the passion they put into their music, which remains very potent today,” he added.