"Big Wheels Keep on Turning"

“And we’re rollin’, ohhhh, rollin’ yea.” The slow and steady, tsss, tsss, tsss from the drum hat and the strum up and down across the strings of the guitar. In the middle of the 90s, in the middle of my living room, there I was blaring Proud Mary on my mothers Sony shelf style stereo system, while “What’s love got to do with it” (Touchstone Pictures 1993) played on the T.V. in the background. Most nights I spent doing this, at all hours of the night. Re-enacting scenes from the movie and performing for my 4-year-old sister, newborn brother and my entire collection of stuffed animals. Sifting through my mothers’ exotic wardrobe and costumes, I would find the outfit that would match as close to what she was wearing on the covers of her albums or herself portrayed in the movie. A red pants suit and black heels, stumbling into the living room/ stage, “They call it Nutbush, Nutbush city limits, owwwweeeee, Nutbush city limits.” I would tie sheets together to make the white dress with slits up the sides. “Rivvveerr deeeep, mountain higgggghhhhh.” I would shake it like a tail feather until my siblings and stuffed animals were finally asleep. Being careful to put my newborn brother in his crib and under the light that made him glow in the dark. I would climb into the big chair in the living room and listen to Tina until I eventually fell asleep. My mother worked a 9-5 during the day and she would come home make us dinner and tuck us in and leave again for her other job at night.

At nine years old, I was still very afraid of the dark. I could not fall asleep on my own, knowing I was alone with my younger siblings. I would watch “What’s Love got to do with it” over and over until I would fall asleep. Although the movie did have a fair share of accuracy flaws in order to gain that Hollywood status, I still felt comfort in watching it. Between the movie and my mother’s full collection of Tina Turner’s masterpieces, I had found my first taste for music and my fascination with strong determined black women.

I had never seen that before. My mother was a single white woman, raising 3 mixed children, working multiple jobs to make ends meet and to support her many abusive boyfriends and husbands. I would try to get my mom to stop cleaning or doing laundry on her only day off, I wanted her to sit with me and watch the movie. I was never able to get passed, “I have seen it before, but I only have so much time to get this house together.” The smile on my face would fade and I would return to the big chair and resume the movie, “you’re gonna eat this goddamn cake Anna Mae.” I wanted to show my mother so badly that she could be strong like Tina. If I could get her to watch the full movie without her falling asleep, she would see that Tina not only survived years of physical and mental abuse, but continued to live for herself, to love herself and become a powerhouse of self-manifestation. I bet she did not know because she never got to the end of the movie.

At 9, I could recognize the power in Tina Turner’s story, I was so drawn to it, because it was a mirror of my life. Watching my mother be abused by men my entire childhood, they did not spare our young eyes or ears. Tina was my first love, her roar, so deep and raw, rocked my 9-year-old socks off. Adults would call me an old soul, trying to wrap their heads around my infatuation with her. Asking why I was not more interested in Mariah Carey or the Spice Girls. Why wasn’t I doing the Macarena instead?

Tina’s voice, her lyrics, and her perseverance moved me, it set the standard of what I was willing to accept in future relationships and what to expect out of myself, the empowerment of taking back control over her life. Her story let me know that no matter how hard or bad I thought things were or continued to be for that matter, if I stayed strong and resilient, I could overcome it.

Tina on Resilience: “People think my life has been tough, but I think it’s been a wonderful journey. The older you get, the more you realize it’s not what happened, it’s how you deal with it.” – Tina Turner, from Marie Claire South Africa in May 2018.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, meaning devotion to the mystic law of the Lotus Sutra.

I remember the part of the movie, where she started chanting, she sought help and healing in her friend Jackie to find a way to make it through what could only be described as one of the most horrific times in her life. As I grew older, Tina’s music remained in rotation, but I found myself in my own battles, feeling defeated, lost with no end in sight. It was 2009, my older sister was stationed in Iraq, and at a time when global communication was just starting out. We mostly talked through e-mail and I would schedule times to be by the phone to get the international call. I was homeless, jobless, battling addiction and all alone. I went to my grandparents’ house to receive the phone call, and immediately shot off a million things going wrong in my life and no real solution for it. My sister calmly asked me to repeat after her, I did with tears welling in my eyes and falling down my checks. She said, Nam and I repeated, Nam. Myoho. Myoho. Renge. Renge. Kyo. Kyo. She sat on the phone with me in the middle of a war, chanting with me, over and over. I felt my body relax; I had stopped crying. My sister emailed me resources to find centers to practice Nichiren Buddhism. It was not until my first meeting that I had realized that I was doing the same spiritual practice as my first hero, Tina Turner. The practice changed me and my life in so many ways, allowing me to find myself and accomplish my own human revolution. I felt more connected and was able to understand how she was able to start her own transformation.

Tina did not have a role model doing what she was doing at that time in music and in life. She battled racism, sexism, ageism and misogynism among a long list of other hurdles in her life. Her strength and determination made her that role model for me and I am sure so many other little girls and women at the time.

Thank you, Ms. Tina Turner, for your struggle. Thank you for your strength. Thank you for giving me someone to draw on for my own strength and determination to always fight and specifically fight back. Your presence in the music industry during a time where woman were looked over or put in a box as a man’s center piece, must have felt like a discouraging brick wall, but you forged the way for other woman to continue moving forward and to never look back. Thank you for standing out and showing other little black girls like me that you do not have to sit back and take it, that you can fight back and win.