part of what i was trying to project with this c.d., most people don't know her name was eleanora fagan don't know her life was a short 44 years because she had such an impact. but i feel billie has reached across every line, every genre. you can talk to pop singers, rock stars, all kind of musicians and performers as well as just people, you know, and they will say how billie holiday has helped them through their lives and through painful periods. so i wanted to show that she was more than this long suffering tragic figure. billie chose to stand up for what she believed in when she did "strange fruit. " and that's really the pivotal point in her life. that's when the government said, if you sing songs, you will have problems. that's when they planted drugs in her apartment, and they arrested her. you have to remember, tavis, she lived in a period that was very difficult for us as black people and especially as entertainers. you know, to kind of have hypocritical life of being admired by the white population but not being able to mingle with them. having to be relegated to kind of servi