"When I was a child, my mother would play 'Proud Mary' on repeat as I danced around our living room, singing along into my toy microphone at the top of my lungs," writes US Vice President Kamala Harris in a lovely tribute to the queen of rock 'n' roll Tina Turner who died last month.
From Harris's essay in Rolling Stone:
So many of [Turner's] songs were rooted in freedom, individuality, and self-determination — at a time when such concepts felt off-limits to Black female artists. But Tina Turner did more than just give voice to those values — she lived them. Onstage and off, she was unapologetically Tina. With her very presence representing an affront to the status quo, she stood tall and proud, demonstrating to the world that rock stars could look like her, too, and reminding us all the power of living as our true, authentic selves […]
Tina Turner sacrificed a great deal to have the success that she did. Throughout her life, she endured racism, sexism, and domestic violence — experiences that nobody should ever have to face. But she met those challenges head-on with courage and conviction. As she later put it, experiences that "could have shattered me, instead became fuel for my journey, propelling me upward."
Turner was the first black artist to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
