Scholarship money from the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM) funded the nuts and bolts of her launch.
So if there's extra excitement around Center City's Doubletree Hotel this weekend, it's because NANM is using it as its convention nerve center though Monday. (The concluding gala concert, featuring Simpson and numerous well-known singers such as Donnie Ray Albert and Marquita Lister, will be Monday at North Philadelphia's Bright Hope Baptist Church.)
The organization's profile isn't all that high - the local chapter, known as the W. Russell Johnson Music Guild, has 65 members, nationwide membership is about 800, and the convention will attract 300 - in part because it functions for the welfare of musicians, some of them classical, many of them church musicians. Many have gone on to cross racial lines, but that's not what the NANM has traditionally done.
The scholarships offered, which go as high as $2,000, are helpful, but the psychological support may be more important. Time and again, members say they felt they were voices in the wilderness when they decided to devote their lives to music other than jazz or rap; they needed to see peers doing the same.
"To me, these conventions are like when you're running a marathon and you stop by the water table, rejuvenate, and then go back out," says Simpson. "People are sometimes tired by the time the opportunity comes and they can't take full advantage of it. It's funny, one month you feel like you're doing very well and three months later you wonder if anybody out there knows your name."
