Tender Loving Care… Really?
They were the biggest girl group of all time. So why haven’t TLC had the recognition they deserve?
On April 25, 2002, rapper, singer and founder member of TLC, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, was nearing the end of a month-long visit to Honduras. The troubled star was being filmed by a documentary crew in an attempt to put her “wild child” image to rest, but tragedy was recorded instead.
Driving an SUV that was overloaded and speeding, the camera captured the moment Lisa lurched off the road, her vehicle hitting trees, turning upside down and rolling over and over; by the time she reached hospital, she was dead. Her funeral in an Atlanta suburb drew thousands, and mourners included stars such as Usher, Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, as well as Lisa’s two surviving bandmates, T-Boz and Chilli.
At that moment, TLC were the biggest-selling girl group of all time. They still rank at number three, and only the Supremes had more Number 1 singles, but it is as if the group’s place in the history of popular music has been erased.
The roots of successThe TLC story started in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1991 when Crystal Jones and Lisa Lopes formed 2nd Nature with Tionne Watkins. Manager Perrie
‘Pebbles’ McKissack renamed them TLC – representing Tender Loving Care and the girls themselves: Tionne, Lisa and Crystal. Jones was soon replaced by Rozonda Thomas, and the trio adopted nicknames (Tionne became ‘T-Boz’ and Lisa ‘Left Eye’) so that Rozonda – as ‘Chilli’ – could fill the vacant ‘C’ slot. The real TLC was born.
Their debut album, 1992’s
Ooooooohhh... On The TLC Tip, showcased a girls-first take on the hip-hop/soul hybrid known as New Jack Swing. The record reached the US Top 20 and went on to sell over six million copies.
The artist’s demonsIt’s said that success magnifies the demons that drive many artists. Lisa’s problems with alcohol were rooted in her troubled teenage years, when she was raised in an atmosphere of abuse and alcoholism. Later Lopes met Atlanta Falcons player Andre ‘Bad Moon’ Rison and, following a series of alcohol-fuelled and occasionally physical confrontations, in June 1994 she set light to armfuls of his trainers in the bathtub. Fire destroyed the building and Lopes was charged with arson. She escaped a prison sentence, but her message of female empowerment was compromised by the ‘crazy girlfriend’ tag.
CrazySexyCool would be TLC’s defiant response. The single ‘Waterfalls’, assisted by a dazzling video, became their second US Number 1 from an album that would sell over 16 million copies. It seemed they had passed through the crisis but things took a surreal turn in 1995, when, in the midst of success, the band declared themselves bankrupt.
The group’s third album, 1999’s
Fanmail, yielded two touchstone TLC moments in the himbo-baiting ‘No Scrubs’ and ‘Unpretty’ – a song decrying cosmetic surgery.
Fanmail went on to sell nine million copies, but TLC would never again reach such heights. As the girls pursued solo careers, the future of the group seemed precarious.
Personal tragediesMeanwhile Lopes was trying hard to bring peace into her own life. Honduras was a home from home, but tragedy followed her even there.
Earlier in that final visit to the country, Lisa had been a passenger in a vehicle that hit and killed a small boy. She had been having terrible dreams, premonitions of her own demise, long before she found out the child’s surname was Lopez. She told some of those close to her that a spirit had come for her, but had taken the boy by mistake.
The recording of
3D, the fourth TLC album, had been put on hold before Lisa’s fatal accident, and who knows what she would have brought to the studio had she survived. Instead, Tionne and Rozonda finished
3D and dedicated it to Lopes.
Past, present – and future?Anyone wondering where to start the archaeology of post-1970s blackmusic could do worse than delve into TLC’s vaults. As Tionne said just before the release of
3D in the autumn of2002, there’s plenty of material in the can.
“We have songs for years and days! Lisa did stuff in TLC that you’ve never heard. Lisa could probably be heard for as long as Tupac
[Shakur, whose posthumous releases dwarf the number of records released during his life]. It’s down to what her mother and everybody wants to do.”
In short, TLC weren’t just pretty faces. They were at the centre of an Atlanta music scene that was hugely important to the evolution of American urban music. But just as TLC eclipsed the acts they’d drawn encouragement from, so their place in the spotlight has been filled by those they inspired. History might be ignoring TLC today, but history can, and should, be rewritten.
Story by Angus BateyTLC’s back catalogue is available on Arista Records through Sony BMG
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