💐 FLOWERS FOR SIMPLY NAOMI 🌹
I met Simply Naomi in 2009. As i reflect on her recent transition from the physical realm, I am filled with gratitude, respect, love and passion for this woman who not only nourished my life, but thousands of young women who were in need of love and guidance. Thank you Ms. Naomi. It has been an honor to love you.
Written by BL Shirelle
Simply Naomi performing at FREER’s ten year anniversary concert. Photo: Brian Goodwin.
It took me a while to process my emotions about Ms. Naomi’s passing. Her death had such a deep, profound effect on me, on my family. My wife and I were pretty much raised by our grandmothers and when we found ourselves in the penitentiary in early adulthood, Ms. Naomi stepped into our grandmother's place seamlessly at a time when we needed that guidance the most. I was trying to hold on to the jewels my Gramps gave me, hoping I retained it – that it was in there somewhere, I just chose not to listen. To my surprise, I would soon be reminded by one of the most beautiful voices you could ever hear.
Prison photos. Ms. Naomi (left), me on the right.
Years later, us performing at MoMA PS1.
Photo: Ryan Muir.
I first met Ms. Naomi as a 19-year old young buck on my first big girl’s bid upstate, but it was short lived, because she was sent back to SCI Muncy soon after. The first thing I noticed about her was just how much of a STAR she was. I mean, people would fill up the church from every single walk of life. I know I've said this 1000 times, but it's just one of those things that's really amazing when you see it, ESPECIALLY in a penitentiary. Prisons tend to be VERY segregated. Separated by race, time spent, crimes, hometowns, gangs, faith, sexuality, age – it’s probably one of the most divided communities in the world. The way it divides into slimmer and slimmer quotients based on cultural or trivial demographics. This was the first time I saw those barriers shatter. This was the first time I saw every single walk of life, even satanists, coming to see this lady sing about God. It was SO AMAZING. When they made the church call, you had to run to the church, because if you didn't, you weren't going to get a seat. It was all to hear this lady sing. As a young musician, it was the most powerful thing I could have ever imagined as someone who not only made music, but made music with pain and purpose.
Simply Naomi’s first record bubbled under the billboard Hot 100 when she was only 14 years old.
At that time it wasn’t common for lifers to be in SCI Cambridge Springs. They considered Cambridge to be a medium/minimum security prison back then. It was extremely petty, but it did feel a little bit more free; while also being a lot stricter. For example, they had wall ball and volleyball tournaments, but you would get a write-up for not tucking your t-shirt in. With her guile and charm, Ms. Naomi had landed time at Cambridge for several years, only to have it taken away when she was involuntarily involved in a scandal. A staff member was allegedly engaging in inappropriate relationships with inmates and this staff member was Ms. Naomi’s boss. He ran the kitchen and while he had horrible judgement and discipline – I must state for the record we all LOVED the homemade fresh bread he allowed the cooks to bake daily. 10/10… highly recommend lol! 🤣 🤣 🤣
Because Ms Naomi was his right hand man, they assumed that she had something to do with it or had intel. She didn’t blink. That was the second strong impression I got of this elder - Ms. Naomi stood on business. She was a woman of integrity. They threatened to send her back to Muncy, the maximum state prison for women, where they treat you badly, call you all kinds of bitches, the medical is abysmal, the old cottages are smothered in asbestos... lifers would have said anything to stay at Cambridge back then. When she declined to lie on the man – they threw her in solitary confinement. She didn’t decline because she was covering for him, but because she didn't know anything. She said, “I’ll go back before I make up anything on ANYBODY: staff, inmate, volunteer or visitor.” After months in solitary and still not a peep from Ms. Naomi, they eventually shipped her back to Muncy.
Simply Naomi & her choir in 1991.
With this sudden exit, I didn’t get close to her during that stint, but I felt the calming effect she had on people’s spirits. I wound up going home, but when my wife and I came back to prison (for the second time), she looked at us, smiled and said, “I’M GLAD GOD KEPT YOU.” The worst thing about entering a prison as a recidivist is facing the lifers; how they look at you with a tangible disappointment, the things they say to you in the sternest, sometimes disgusted tone. It's all out of love, but it just makes you feel so small because they can't get that second chance. In the state of Pennsylvania, LIFE means you're in there until you're dead. Not only do you feel ashamed for yourself, your children, the elders in your family whom you’ve let down – you also feel so bad for those lifers, because you know that you’re squandering an immense opportunity. The opportunity of FREEDOM. The combination of it all hurt. But Ms. Naomi… she didn't say any of that. I’ll never forget those words: “I'm glad God kept you.” She offered me and my wife hygiene and snacks and said, “I’ll see y’all in church!”
We grew closer slowly and organically. I was never a problem child so I didn’t make the choir. She’d only put great singers and problem children in the choir to keep them out of trouble - and I didn’t fit the former either. One of my satanist roommates who had swastikas tatted all over her started playing an instrument for the choir. Through that experience with Ms. Naomi, she ended up giving her life to God. It was one of the most beautiful transitions to witness. Years later at Ms. Naomi's funeral service, I saw a young woman I was incarcerated with. She had come all the way from Florida to attend. She never formally met Ms. Naomi. She’d not even spoken to her – not even ONCE. At a young age, she was pregnant and delivered her baby while incarcerated. Her child was thrown into the system immediately. Suffering from a horrible case of untreated postpartum, she decided she would take her own life. Her mind was so made up she had already written her goodbye letters. That is – until they moved her to B Unit where Ms. Naomi lived. “Her voice kept me alive,” she said. “That angelic voice… I felt like God was speaking to me through her voice. To just hold on. Have faith… I got you.” Then, she looked up and smiled with tears of gratitude and said, “and he did. I had to personally drive all the way up here to pay my respects to a woman I never spoke to, but she spoke to me. She spoke to my soul.”
Simply Naomi singing incarcerated at SCI Muncy in 1988 at a Christmas concert.
If you spend time speaking to people who encountered Ms. Naomi you will hear so many stories like that. She was a woman of God whose purpose was to show folks her creator’s love. Not by preaching or condemning, but daily practice. She wasn’t actively recruiting – people just wanted that light she had and that desire made them seek the source of hers. A gay woman who was no saint, but a human angel. Her relationship with God wasn’t one of strict law, it was of love. Only love. Ms. Naomi had a gift of never making a person feel judged, but still being so full of humanity and humility. She once told me a story about her needing a drink really bad. She was shaking from the withdrawal. Her parents owned a popular bar so they had hundreds of empty liquor bottles in the basement. Sensing her desperation, her 8-year old son went down in the basement and emptied the corners of about 100 bottles of liquor. 2 drops here, 1 drop there of old, stale, brown, clear liquors and wines until he made a full cup of liquor for his momma. She looked at her son with so much shame in her heart. With tears in her eyes reflecting on that moment, she said it was then she knew she had to make a change. Emotionally moved myself, I asked her, “Did you go seek help?” Her answer: “HELL NO!!” and we cackled the pain away. The truth was just that and she wouldn’t sugarcoat it. That’s what made her special.
Simply Naomi & Marie “Mechie” Scott singing, “Greatest Love of ALL” with Project Impact.
Around 2013 we got closer through our love of music. She started teaching me how to harmonize and gave me some really cool songwriting techniques to use while I wrote with my guitar by finding melodies easily within my chord progressions. The day I left prison – she looked me in the eyes and said, “I better not see you again.” Due to the fact that I truly wanted to be successful, that was my plan; but thankfully, God had other plans! Ms. Naomi sang her way out of prison after 37 years! Her TedX performance with the Lady Lifers in 2014 spearheaded commutation for women lifers in PA. Clemency numbers have jumped over 400% since that legendary day. Proof of the power of music. That performance was the first time in my life where I knew in real time that I was witnessing history.
She was commuted December 2019. When she finally was released we hit the road together. I was working with a Yale professor by the name of Ronald Jenkins who teaches The Divine Comedy through the lens of incarcerated people. I knew Ms. Naomi was a great fit for the class so I invited her and we began telling our life stories through the classic text and through original songs of ours. It was a great dynamic of gospel and rap, tension and release, aggression and peace. In doing that, we traveled to many states – I always made her try different foods based on the culture of the place we visited because she was a very picky eater. She loved gas station fried chicken, candy and all kinds of nonsense. One time, we had a recording session with Fury Young and Jack Impink and she randomly cooked chitterlings for these two white guys lol. She’d NEVER offered me no damn chitterlings haha. I used to tell her – her palette was still in Muncy.
Our musical monologue “Troubled Waters” was so moving, there was never a dry eye in the crowd. We were competitive in the best way; we fed off each other's energy and we enjoyed traveling together. Ms. Naomi could hang! One gig, she and one of our Yale students pulled an all-nighter at the casino, did rehearsals in the morning, and she still put on an effortless performance the next day. I watched her become a Commutation Specialist for our Lt. Governor, a role that she's still manifesting even from the grave; just last week, the clemency paperwork that Ms. Naomi proofread for fellow lifer Dannielle Hadley helped get Ms. Danny a Yes vote for commutation - and she is headed home any day now!! Ms. Naomi was truly my hero.
Ms. Naomi performing our play “Troubled Waters” in a historic prison in Palermo, Sicily. 2023.
In her song, “Incarcerated” (a penitentiary fan favorite), Ms. Naomi sings, "I could have been in Paris somewhere, I'll never know, ‘cause I chose to be a fool.” When Ms. Naomi and I went to Sicily in 2024 to perform The Divine Comedy - both of us traveling to Europe for the first time, her after 37 years in prison - I kept thinking how surreal it was. We would get up in the morning, grab an electric scooter and coast through the city; getting lost with no worries. One of those days, we were under the stars as if we were in The Divine Comedy itself. I looked at her, and that lyric just popped in my mind. We sang it together under the stars in Italy, “I could have been in Paris, somewhere. I'll never know, because I choseeee to be a foooooool” (followed by a legendary Ms. Naomi run). And we cried. We cried real life happy tears in that moment together. It was something out of a movie.
Poster for BL & Simply Naomi performing “Troubled Waters” at Yale University, 2023.
As she started to get really sick we talked A LOT. My wife and I went to see her often… she never complained. Just like she never complained while serving that LIFE sentence. If you didn't see it with your own eyes you wouldn't even believe how sick she was. My last real conversation with her was three hours long, a conversation so deep and meaningful that I will carry it with me for as long as I live. I spent every day with her the last week and a half of her life until she passed. I was there when she was pronounced deceased. One thing that kept drawing me back was the thousands of women I was representing. Ms. Naomi was too humble of a spirit to make an announcement about her upcoming transition and I felt a responsibility to stand in for all those who didn't get a chance to pay their respects. I know a lot of people would have loved the opportunity to thank her. A bigger reason I kept coming back was it was an honor to show up for her everyday. It was a blessing, and I was way more emotionally and spiritually available to accept what was happening than I was when my Gramps passed nine years before. So I sat there every day and I watched her get more and more distant. I watched as her eyes would light up when I walked in the room and she would reach for my hand. But as the days went on, her eyes got more and more distant. I played her music, I laughed, I cried, and I prayed. I just felt incredibly grateful to have known this lady. Her nephew Buddha, his partner Tee, Ms. Naomi’s partner Fee, Fee’s sister Frannie and cousin Debbie were present everyday as well. We were all family by the time Ms. Naomi took her last breath.
Simply Naomi performing “This Is Not My Home” at DJCX. A song she composed that spearheaded the fight for women’s commutation in Pennsylvania. December 2023.
Prior to Ms. Naomi falling ill, she recorded two projects with FREER Records. In 2023, we released Groove Therapy by Lifers Groove in which she was bandleader. Lifers Groove is a super-collective group of lifer, Black elder musicians and poets who offered their incredible stories to the world via Soul, Spoken Word, Rock n Roll and classic R&B. Between them, these artists represent 150 years of time spent in the American prison system. Following Lifers Groove, in the midst of us recording her solo album, she was diagnosed with breast and lung cancer. We were able to capture several incredible songs from Ms. Naomi and we are now working on these never-heard recordings from this legendary woman. When we put it out – it has to be done RIGHT! Meaning it has to tell the story of this GIANT. People have to know how special she was, not only as a musician but as a person.
I didn’t write this piece to tell her life story. I wrote it in an attempt to convey how much she truly means to me and I’m sure I fell short. Ms. Naomi really changed my life. She wasn't a do-gooder, she didn't try too hard. She was just genuine. I think about her every single day and there are certain life lessons she left me with that I will forever cherish. I love you Ms. Naomi. I miss you so much. Thank you for teaching me, loving me and trusting me. Your legacy lives through so many of us. Job well done my love, JOB WELL DONE.