Tina Turner honored with statue in rural Tennessee

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• The 10-foot bronze statue was unveiled during Brownsville’s annual Tina Turner Heritage Days celebration.

• Sculptor Fred Ajanogha designed the statue to capture Turner mid-performance, reflecting her signature energy and movement.

• The monument stands near her childhood schoolhouse and was funded by donors including Ford Motor Co.

A towering statue of Tina Turner now stands in the Tennessee community where she spent her formative years. According to the Associated Press, the 10-foot bronze sculpture was unveiled Saturday (Sept. 27) during the annual Tina Turner Heritage Days at a park in Brownsville, which is located about an hour east of Memphis.

The city of roughly 9,000 people sits near Nutbush, where Turner went to school as a child. As a teenager, she attended high school just steps from where the new monument stands. Created by sculptor Fred Ajanogha, the statue captures Turner mid-performance — microphone in hand, signature wild hair flowing, and index finger extended in her trademark pose. Ajanogha said he wanted to reflect “her flexibility of movement on stage” and likened her hair to the “mane of a lion.”

About 50 donors, including Ford Motor Co., which contributed $150,000, helped fund the piece. The statue is located near the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center, home to a museum inside the late musician’s restored one-room schoolhouse. Fans from across the country gathered to mark the moment, including Karen Cook, who traveled from Georgia. “She’s a great artist, I love her music,” Cook told the AP. “It’s a big deal and a great thing for the community to have Tina Turner in her small town.”

The impact Tina Turner left behind

Turner, born Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, broke barriers with her raspy voice, magnetic stage presence, and genre-defying hits. She died in 2023, at the age of 83 in Küsnacht, Switzerland, following a long illness. Her Grammy-winning catalog includes “Proud Mary,” “Private Dancer” and “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” which became her only No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Known as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Turner’s influence spans generations of artists, from Mick Jagger to Beyoncé, and her hometown’s new statue cements her legacy in bronze.