Wealth & Money Quote by Nia Long

Nia Long isn’t just admiring Nina Simone; she’s reaching for a usable template of Black womanhood that refuses to be domesticated. The word “journey” nods to the official, museum-ready version of Simone - genius, icon, complicated. Then Long swerves into the version that still crackles: “spicy,” “attitude,” “didn’t care.” Those are pop-coded adjectives, but they carry real freight. They’re the safe, interview-friendly ways to point at a harder truth: Simone’s defiance wasn’t a personality quirk, it was strategy in a world built to underpay, overmanage, and politely punish Black artists who didn’t smile on command.

The “money in a paper bag” detail does the heavy lifting. It’s vivid, a little funny, and instantly legible: no contracts, no endless negotiations, no middlemen with plausible deniability. Pay me, now, plainly. It evokes the hustler ethic and the indignity that necessitates it, hinting at an industry where even legends had to self-advocate like they were asking for a favor. “Don’t mess with me” lands as a boundary, not a slogan - the line between being celebrated and being exploited.

Long’s trailing “and I’ve been doing some research on that so” is the tell. She’s mid-process, building credibility, signaling she’s not name-dropping Simone as aesthetic. It’s also a small admission that Simone’s legend has been smoothed over, and you have to dig to find the sharper edges - the ones that explain why she still matters.