Nabiyah Be plays Simone Jackson, the queen of disco music

Daughter of Jimmy Cliff, known for her performance in the film “Black Panther”, is in the series “Daisy Jones and The Six”

If you have seen at least one episode of Daisy Jones and the sixPrime Video series, so you’ve seen the Brazilian Nabiya Be (Nábia Bê law) on stage. The actress and singer, daughter of a psychologist from Bahia with the musician Jimmy Cliff, plays the “queen of disco music” Simone Jackson in the new streaming production.

The series is an adaptation of the novel Daisy Jones and The Six: A Story of Love and Music, written by Taylor Jenkins Reid and released in 2019. The series, which has six episodes, follows a rock band in the 1970s, their meteoric career and what led up to the group’s rapid demise.

Simone Jackson, the singer played by Nabiyah, is a great friend of the protagonist of the story. “Simone is a singer, songwriter, artist, a pioneer of disco music, one of the people who are really at the forefront of this movement – ​​and she is also best friends with Daisy,” Nabiyah says in an interview with Estadão via video call from his home in New York. “Simone is the person who gives her the first push to empower her dreams as a singer and songwriter.”

MINIBIO. But the character is not a mere secondary character. Unlike the book, the adaptation has a better structured arc. “I listened to the audiobook during the first tests, but ended up leaving the book ‘on the shelf,'” says the 30-year-old actress. She talks about how her character evolves throughout the story, which isn’t as explained in the book, and also how she had to build with the writers—she even wrote a mini-biography for Simone. “I knew that I had all this construction and that this responsibility would also come from me,” she points out.

In addition to the series First video, Nabiyah can be seen in another high-profile production. She is in the cast of Black Panther, a film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While in Daisy Jones she had plenty of chances to build the character, in the Marvel film she says the process was “more secretive.”

“Just because there’s such a powerful fandom, everything is full of secrecy, you don’t know what you’re going to do, what’s going to happen and that’s how it was. With Daisy Jones it was the exact opposite,” says the artist. In Black Panther, she plays Linda, partner of the villain Killmonger, played by Michael B. Jordan. The film was her big screen debut.

CAREER. Nabiyah’s career started in music when she was still a child. From the ages of seven to 11, she got used to taking the stage to sing with her father, Jimmy Cliff, on tours around the world. “It was a way for us to be together, as a family. At one point I ran on stage and refused to leave,” she recalls. “It was my first job, I remember getting paid at the age of seven for singing internationally with my father,” she continues.

In addition to performances with Cliff, he recalls being part of a theater group while living in Salvador. “I also tried to get into television in Brazil, but at 18 I moved to New York and, within a year and a half of living here, I started working the off-Broadway circuit.”

Living in Salvador, Nabiyah also got to work with big names in Bahian music. “I did backing vocals for Daniela Mercury and Carlinhos Brown,” she says.

In New York, the actress and singer made a career in musical theater. Her portrayal of Eurydice in the Tony Award-winning off-Broadway play Hadestown earned praise from New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood. “Euridice di Be has a luminous beauty which makes Orpheus’ swift passion quite believable, and her singing is equally enchanting,” wrote the reviewer. “It also imbues the character with a transparent innocence that makes Eurydice’s susceptibility to doubt and seduction palpably believable,” he explains. Hadestown: The Myth, The Musical is an adaptation of Anaïs Mitchell’s folk opera concept album of the same name, which premiered in 2016.

FUTURE. Nabiyah is now preparing to release her first album, which she prefers to keep secret. Her most recent musical work is a collaboration with Margareth Menezes. The Minister of Culture was the one who introduced Cliff to Nabiyah’s mother and ended up becoming something of a godmother to the actress and singer.

The two released Querera, in 2019. “Whether you like it or not / your thoughts will sail away and I / Cae will always be in motion / Gil is open to your every step,” the song says, quoting the two Bahian artists who are also inspiration for their career as Nabiyah. “Gil, Caetano and all the tropicalists are references,” she warns.

And if Gilberto Gil sings “Bahia has already given me ruler and compass”, Nabiyah is undoubtedly proof that there is no way to say otherwise. “I feel that, spiritually, being born and raised in Bahia is a very powerful thing,” she adds. L

Source: Terra

Earl

Earl Johnson is a music writer at Gossipify, known for his in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the industry. A graduate of USC with a degree in Music, he brings years of experience and passion to his writing. He covers the latest releases and trends, always on the lookout for the next big thing in music.