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Queen of Rock and Roll, Tina Turner dies at 83

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Tina Turner, the dynamic rock and soul singer who rose from humble beginnings and overcame a notoriously abusive marriage to become one of the most popular female artists of all time, has died, her family announced in a statement on Wednesday. She was 83.

Turner died at her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland.

“With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model,” her family said.

“With her music and her boundless passion for life, she enchanted millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow. Today we say goodbye to a dear friend who leaves us all her greatest work: her music. All our heartfelt compassion goes out to her family. Tina, we will miss you dearly,” a statement on her verified Facebook page read.

A riveting live performer, Turner had a string of R&B hits in the 1960s and early ’70s with her domineering and violent husband Ike Turner before she left him – fleeing their Dallas hotel room with 36 cents.

Her solo career floundered for years before she mounted a stunning comeback in 1984 with her multiplatinum album “Private Dancer” and its No. 1 hit, “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”

Before long Turner was a global superstar, commanding MTV with her spiky wigs, short skirts and famously long legs strutting across concert stages in three-inch heels.

Her talent earned her acclaim as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” while her resiliency made her a hero to battered women everywhere. When she sang of pain and heartache in her husky, full-throated voice, every word rang true.

Why Tina Turner said she left the US

“For a long time I felt like I was stuck, with no way out of the unhealthy situation I was in,” she told Harvard Business Review in 2021. “But then I had a series of encounters with different people who encouraged me … And once I could see myself clearly, I began to change, opening the way to confidence and courage. It took a few years, but finally I was able to stand up for my life and start anew.”

‘He knew I had potential to be a star’

She was born Anna Mae Bullock in 1939 to poor sharecroppers near Nutbush, Tennessee, a rural community north of Memphis that she later made famous in her autobiographical song, “Nutbush City Limits.” She spent her early years living with her grandmother after her parents split.

“We weren’t in poverty. We had food on the table. We just didn’t have fancy things, like bicycles,” Turner said in a 2005 interview with Oprah Winfrey.

“We were church people, so on Easter, we got all done up. I was very innocent and didn’t know much else. I knew the radio—B.B. King, country and western,” Turner said. “That’s about it. I didn’t know anything about being a star until the white people allowed us to come down and watch their television once a week.”

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Following the death of their grandmother in the 1950s, Turner and her sister Ruby moved to St. Louis, Missouri, to live with their mother.

It was in St. Louis that she began to visit some of the local clubs and met musician Ike Turner, whose band, Kings of Rhythm, were popular in the area. He recruited her at age 17 to join his band as a singer.

“Ike had to come to the house and ask Ma if it was OK for me to sing with him. He knew I had the potential to be a star. We were close, like brother and sister,” Turner told Winfrey. “On his off nights, we’d drive around town, and he would tell me about his life, his dreams. He told me that when he was young, people found him unattractive. That really hurt him. I felt bad for him. I thought, ‘I’ll never hurt you, Ike.’ I meant it. He was so nice to me then, but I did see the other side of him.”

She began performing as Tina Turner and, in 1960, they formed the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Their relationship evolved and their son Ronnie was born that same year. They married in 1962 and raised four children, including two children from Ike’s previous relationships and Tina’s son, Craig, also from a previous relationship.

A brutal union

As Turner has stated in her autobiography and in interviews, the physical abuse began almost from the start.

Thin-skinned and mercurial, Ike Turner would fly into fits of rage at the slightest provocation, she said, adding that he would hit her with whatever was available – coat hangers, telephones, a wooden shoe stretcher, his fists.

Often, she said, he’d even beat her before they went onstage.

“He’d hit me in the ribs, and then always try to give me a black eye. He wanted his abuse to be seen. That was the shameful part,” Turner told Winfrey.

Tina sang lead on most of their songs with the help of female backup singers, while her husband remained in the background, usually on guitar. Their musical partnership yielded a string of R&B hits, including “A Fool In Love,” “Nutbush City Limits” and “Proud Mary,” their 1971 cover of a Creedence Clearwater Revival song, which reached No. 4 on the pop charts and won them a Grammy.

But offstage their marriage remained tumultuous, fueled in part by Ike Turner’s cocaine addiction.

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“Another night we had a fight in the dressing room, and when I went onstage, my face was swollen,” she told Winfrey. “I think my nose was broken because blood was gushing into my mouth when I sang. Before, I’d been able to hide under makeup. But you can’t hide swelling.”

She stuck with Ike Turner for more than a decade, terrified of his temper and determined not to abandon him like others had.

But things came to a head in July 1976 when they flew to Dallas for a show. Turner wrote in her book that after a flight on the airplane, her husband began hitting her in a car on the way to their hotel. While he slept, she slipped out of their room, carrying only a Mobil credit card and 36 cents – “a quarter, a dime and a penny.”

She fled across a busy highway to a motel, where a sympathetic clerk saw her bloodied face and gave her a room. She then called a lawyer she knew, who arranged for a friend to pick her up and put her on an airplane back to Los Angeles.

“After my plane landed in California, my heart was in my ears. I was afraid Ike would be there because when I’d left once before, he tracked me down on a bus…” she told Oprah. “So when I got off that plane, I ran like mad. I said to myself, ‘If he’s here, I’m going to scream for the police. And I had one chant in my head: ‘I will die before I go back.’”

By then a friend had introduced Turner to Buddhism and its practice of chanting, which she credited with giving her the strength to leave her husband. Raised Baptist, Turner embraced Buddhism whole-heartedly in middle age and said its teachings changed her life.

“I came to understand that any achievement stems from inner change,” she told Harvard Business Review. “The more I studied Buddhist principles, the deeper I dug within myself and cleaned up whatever attitudes or habits were standing in my way.”

She and Ike were formally divorced in 1978 after a long legal battle. She wrote in her book that he retained most of the earnings and assets they had earned as a couple, while she cared for their four sons. The divorce almost ruined her financially, and for the next few years Turner performed on TV specials and in Las Vegas as she struggled to rebuild her career.

Her comeback gained momentum after she hired Australian manager Roger Davies in 1979. Rod Stewart invited her to perform “Hot Legs” with him on “Saturday Night Live” two years later, and in 1983, her cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” became a hit in England.

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Then came “Private Dancer,” which spawned three Top 10 hits, won her three Grammys and eventually sold more than 10 million copies. Although she didn’t like the song at first and had to be talked into recording it, “What’s Love Got to Do With It” made her, at 44, the oldest female artist to score a No. 1 hit.

In 1985, at the peak of her powers, she sang on the all-star charity single “We Are the World,” performed with Mick Jagger at the historic Live Aid concerts and co-starred in Mel Gibson’s post-apocalyptic film “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” scoring another hit with “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” a song from the movie.

The next year Turner chronicled her early career and abusive marriage in a best-selling memoir, “I, Tina,” which was adapted into a hit 1993 film, “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” starring Angela Bassett.

The hit albums, singles and sold-out concerts continued throughout the late ’80s and ‘90s, and Turner remained a popular live act well into the new millennium – especially in England.

Turner moved to Switzerland in the 1990s with German boyfriend Erwin Bach, an executive for her record company. He was 16 years younger. The pair married in 2013 after a 27-year romantic relationship and in 2022 bought a $76 million estate on Lake Zurich.

“I pay taxes here (in the US). My family is here,” she told CNN’s Larry King in 1997. “I left America because my (biggest) success was in another country and my boyfriend was in another country. Europe has been very supportive of my music.”

Ike and Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and she was inducted as a solo artist in 2021. “Tina,” a musical based on her life story, opened on Broadway in 2018.

Turner is preceded in death by her two sons, Craig, who died in 2018, and Ronnie, in 2022.

“Some of the happiest moments in my life were the birth of my beautiful baby boys, Craig and Ronnie, and marrying my partner and soul mate, Erwin Bach,” she told NBC’s Today Show in 2021.

Professionally, she said, her happiest moments were performing live.

“One of my early career goals was to become the first Black woman to fill stadiums around the world,” she told NBC. “At the time, it seemed impossible. But I never gave up, and I’m so happy I made that dream come true.

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PHOTOS: Royalty meets beauty as Aare Adams ties the knot with delectable Joy

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Be a person of the people and only the best things in life will come your way. That was the beautiful experience of the Aareonakakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Abiodun Ige Adams, on Saturday, December 9, 2023, when the Yoruba generalisimo tied the knot with his delectable wife, Joy.

 

The private ceremony at the bride’s home in Lagos was a beauty to behold as culture, royalty and tradition mixed in honor of a gentle warrior.

 

His Royal Majesty Oba Babatunde A. Nasiru Lawal Ogunronbi, the Ariwajoye/Akinlowo 1, Oba of Shasha kingdom, Lagos State, led the groom’s party.

 

MEET THE NEW AYINBA

Beauty, brilliance and calmness. These are few of the great qualities that truly capture the essence of Ayinba Joy Adams.

 

Ayinba Joy is the beautiful daughter of a revered Lagos-based architect, Chief Lucky Onojaife, who has been a great inspiration to the entire family.

 

A brief look at her face reveals great qualities that you can hardly ignore. And you begin to wonder how she was able to combine her beautiful, glowing skin, brilliance and calmness with her gentle mien and composure.

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Whenever she is in a public place, she carries a mien and composure of a true queen.

 

Whether in or out of the public glare the young gem’s only signature is her beautiful, smiley face and calm nature.

 

That is why she easily attracts people’s favour and attention as she navigates her environment.

 

To her parents and to those that have had encounter with her, Ayinba Joy is a product of God’s grace and it is no doubt that the former Miss Delta had also been blessed by fate.

 

Her journey in life wasn’t accidental. It was a fulfillment of destiny that is measured with time.

 

Today, Ayinba Joy’s lofty dreams are gradually coming to reality and God had sealed the fate of this beautiful, young damsel in the most amazing manner.

 

SheI had both elementary and secondary school education in Lagos, at Queen Maris College.

 

She is a graduate of Physiology from Delta State University and she is presently studying for a Masters Degree.

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Ayinba Joy Adams was a former Queen of Delta State. She also once held the prestigious Miss Delta and the most beautiful girl in Urhobo land in 2012.

 

That singular laurel had opened a window of opportunities for the young damsel, whose vision is to rule her world and make remarkable impact in the world.

 

Apart from her quality educational career, the beauty queen is always passionate about her career.

 

Ayinba Joy Adams is a lover of music. She loves music with passion, believing that music is the food of the soul.

 

She is a woman of great colour and her favourite colour is white and Brown.

 

The Delta-state born jewel is a strong-minded person-very bold and courageous and she is very focused on achieving whatever she sets her eyes on.

 

Her interest in entrepreneurship and business knows no bounds and she is always ready to impact lives with all the gifts that it has pleased God to bless her with.

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Her major hobby is reading and watching movies.

 

Ayinba Joy is an indoor person and she takes pride in pursuing her dreams with passion.

 

See photos from the wedding

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‘I’M SORRY’: Oladips apologizes to Nigerians over fake death report

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Nigerian rapper, Oladipupo Oladimeji, better known as Oladips, has apologized to Nigerians for the false death news pulled by his management.

 

Oladips expressed “the confusion” and stressed that it was “not a prank,” noting that he was “very sick.”

 

In an interview with Naija FM in Lagos, Oladips said, “To Nigerians and my core followers, I will never play with people’s feelings like that. It was never a prank, I was sick sick, and I am sorry for the confusion, the false alarm, and everything. I take full responsibility.

 

“I’ll make sure I’m surrounded by professionals moving forward cause I believe that’s where the issue arose. I’ve gone through a lot, like having my manager steal from me and wish me dead. I eventually reached the point where my manager was no longer with me. It was just me and my boys.

 

“All I’m aiming to do at the moment is make sure the individuals I choose are professionals who understand what’s appropriate to do. No be person wey because he no hear from my mum, he feels like, ‘Ah! This guy done die.”

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He claimed that his manager would not have put out such news if he was truly a qualified professional.

 

“That is why I said I take full responsibility. So, I’m sorry. Make una forgive me I beg,” he apologized.

 

On November 15, Oladips’ management announced that the artiste had passed away after battling personal struggles for over two years.

 

Shortly after, the management released the rapper’s 17-track album titled ‘Superhero Adugbo’.

 

Suspicions arose recently when Wavy, a longtime friend of Oladips, posted a video claiming “he is alive” with the rapper.

 

He further alleged that the rapper had faked his death and would return online if his album reached the top of the music charts.

 

On Thursday, a video of Oladips vibing to a song from his new album with his mother dancing in the background went viral.

The caption read, “orisa bi iya osi, proof of life”.

 

Oladips also addressed the videos and claims surrounding his alleged death stunt.

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He called out another musician Qdot, and accused him of “misleading everyone” about his health struggle during the death controversy.

 

He also reprimanded other individuals purported to have spread claims that he has been healthy all the while.

 

Shortly after the statement, the rapper was thrust onto the receiving end of a heated social media backlash.

 

Many users on X questioned the rapper for calling out some people while leaving out others.

 

They quizzed Oladips for not blaming his managers who wrongly announced his death on Instagram.

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Actress Bisola Badmus recounts battle with brain disease, says ‘It was tough’

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Popular Yoruba actress, Bisola Badmus, has recounted her battle with with a brain disease called, Encephalopathy,

 

Encephalopathy refers to any disturbance of the brain’s functioning that leads to problems like confusion and memory loss, according to HealthDirect.

 

The actress described it as a ‘tough one’ that made her ‘stay away from social media’

 

Taking to her Instagram account on the occasion of her birthday, the thespian offered appreciation to God for seeing her through the illness.

 

“Over a year now I have been battling with health issues (Encephalopathy). I cannot even wish my enemy such illness. It was a tough one indeed that made me stay away from social media,” Bisola Badmus wrote.

 

” In between, I lost my precious mother. Unquestionable God, I thank you for everything particularly for me to witness yet another birthday.

 

“I will be an ungrateful soul if I fail to appreciate my family and friends, colleagues in the industry, business associates and the brands I represent for standing by me during the challenging period. Thank you all.”

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