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Ike Turner Jr., the son of Tina and Ike Turner Sr., has died at the age of 67, his cousin, Jacquline Bullock, confirmed in a statement to the New York Post.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of my cousin, Ike Turner, Jr.,” Bullock said. ‘”Junior’ was more than a cousin to me, but rather a brother, as we grew up in the same famed household together.”
“As the son of Tina and Ike Turner, from an early age, his talents were evident as there wasn’t an instrument he did not want to play. While he favored the drums early on, my aunt and his mother, Tina Turner, insisted that he break down his drum kit after each practice. This led him to favor the keys. Eventually, Junior would end up helping to run Bolic Sound Studios, the recording studios founded by his father, Ike Turner,” Bullock continued.
“While he faced the same challenges that many of us have, he would become a sought after sound engineer, musician, and Grammy winner for Best Traditional Blues Album in 2007 for his father’s ‘Risin’ With The Blues,'” she added.
Bullock didn't reveal her cousin's cause of death, however, TMZ reported that Ike died of kidney failure. Ike Jr. was born to Ike Sr. and his previous wife, Lorraine Taylor, but adopted by Tina during her marriage to his father.
“Tina raised me from the age of 2. She’s the only mother I’ve ever known,” Ike Jr. told the Daily Mail in 2018, specifying that he was “raised by housekeepers because my mother and father were gone 11 months out of a year.”
Ike Jr. also pursued a career in music after his father initially took him out of school and brought him on tour at the age of 13, having later produced his father's final album, Risin' With The Blues, which was released in 2006, one year prior to his death, and won them the GRAMMY Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.