TLC

TLC is an American girl group whose repertoire spans R&B, hip hop, soul, funk and new jack swing. TLC originally comprised singerTionne "T-Boz" Watkins, rapper Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes and singer Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas. The group was very successful in the 1990s and early 2000s in spite of numerous spats with the law, each other, and the group's record label. TLC's debut album, Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip (1992), sold 6 million copies worldwide and spawned the hit singles "Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg", "Baby-Baby-Baby" and "What About Your Friends".[4] This success was surpassed by their second album, CrazySexyCool(1994), which was certified diamond by the RIAA — a first for a female group. Buoyed by the top 5 singles "Creep", "Red Light Special", "Diggin' on You", and '"Waterfalls", it eventually sold 23 million copies worldwide.[4] Five years later, in 1999, the group released their third album FanMail which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 album chart and sold more than 11 million copies worldwide with the hit singles "No Scrubs" and "Unpretty".[4] The subsequent tour became the highest grossing tour of all time by a female band. In April 2002, Lopes died in a car accident in Honduras. Seven months later, T-Boz and Chilli released the group's fourth album 3D, which sold 2 million copies worldwide, scored the Top 10 hit "Girl Talk", and earned two Grammy Awards nominations. It featured previously unreleased vocals from Left Eye.

Billboard magazine ranked TLC as one of the greatest musical trios.[5] Between 1990 and 2002, the band had ten top ten singles, four number one singles, four multi-platinum albums, and won five Grammy Awards.[4] At the end of 1999, TLC was ranked as the seventh most successful act of the 1990s by Billboard. In 2008, the group was inducted into the All Time Hot 100 Artist Hall of Fame by the same magazine, at 56th place. That year it was also listed as the #25 R&B/hip-hop artist of the preceding 25 years.[6] According to the RIAA, TLC has sold more than 23 million albums and 6.5 million singles in the United States alone.[7] Worldwide they have sold more than 65 million records[8] and are ranked as the best-selling American female group of all time.[9] In 2012, TLC ranked 12th on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Music, and as the number-one all-girl group.

History[edit]
In 1990, Atlanta, Georgia–based record producer Ian Burke and one of his clients, a teenager named Crystal Jones, came up with a concept for a girl group with a tomboyish, hip-hop image, similar to the blend of contemporary R&B and hip-hop music of new jack swing act Bell Biv DeVoe.[11] Jones put out a call for two more girls to join her in this trio. Her request was eventually answered by Tionne Watkins, a native of Des Moines, Iowa, who moved to Atlanta with her family at an early age, and Lisa Lopes, a rapper who had just moved to the city from her native Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with only a keyboard and US$750 ($1,354 today). Calling the group "2nd Nature", Jones, Watkins, and Lopes began working with producers Jermaine Dupri and Rico Wade on demo tape material.[11]

Through a connection at the hair salon where Watkins worked[12] the group eventually managed to arrange an audition with singer Perri "Pebbles" Reid, who had started her own management and production company, Pebbitone. Impressed by the girls, Reid renamed the group "TLC-Skee" (with "TLC" being an acronym of each of their names) and arranged an audition for them with local record label LaFace Records, run by Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds and Reid's then-husband, Antonio "L.A." Reid. The latter Reid saw potential in Watkins and Lopes but felt that Jones should be replaced. According to Jones, she decided to leave the act after not being allowed to take home the contracts Pebbitone had drafted for the group for review;[11] Watkins' recollection is that both she and Lopes asked Jones to leave the group before their initial contracts were negotiated.[12]

On February 28, 1991, Watkins and Lopes signed production, management, and publishing deals with Pebbitone,[13] with Perri Reid becoming their general manager. As they looked for a replacement for Jones, the two-member TLC-Skee made its first on-record appearance on a track for LaFace act Damian Dame's self-titled 1991 LP. As well as appearing on Jermaine Jackson's album "You Said".[14] The group found its missing third member in Rozonda Thomas, one of Damian Dame's part-time backup dancers.

Thomas was signed to the act in April 1991,[13] at about which time the group's name was shortened to "TLC". To keep the meaning behind the TLC name being an acronym for the girls' names, Thomas was christened with the nickname "Chilli", while Watkins became "T-Boz" and Lopes was named "Left Eye". The girls were signed to LaFace in May 1991 through a production deal with Pebbitone[13] and immediately went into the studio with producers Reid and Edmonds, Dallas Austin, Jermaine Dupri, and Marley Marl to produce their first album.

1991–94: Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip[edit]
Their debut album, Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip, was released on February 25, 1992, by LaFace. The songs on the album are a blend of funk (Watkins), hip-hop (Lopes), and R&B (Thomas), similar to the "new jack swing" sound popularized by producer Teddy Riley in the late 1980s (and TLC's sound was sometimes cited as an example of the "new jack swing" genre).[15] The album was a critical and commercial success, being certified quadruple-platinum within a year and launching a number of US Hot 100 top-ten singles with "Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg", "What About Your Friends", and "Baby-Baby-Baby" which reached No. 2 on the Hot 100.

TLC's lyrics, chiefly written by Lopes and Dallas Austin, were playful, female-empowering anthems characterized by Lopes's quirky, nasal-toned raps, Watkins's low-voiced lead vocals, and Thomas's powerful vocals and harmonization. The musical formula was augmented by the girls' brightly colored videos and curious costuming: each girl wore wrapped condoms on their clothing (Lopes also wore one over her left eye in a pair of glasses).

During TLC's first national tour, as MC Hammer's opening act, Lopes and Thomas discovered that Watkins had sickle-cell disease, an ailment which she kept a closely guarded secret until she became ill while TLC was touring the Southwest US. Watkins continued to battle her condition and eventually became a spokesperson for the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America in the late 1990s.[16] She was hospitalized, Lopes and Thomas stayed with her and did not perform as the opening act for a few shows. At the conclusion of the tour, TLC decided to take more control of their careers and thus informed Perri Reid that they no longer wished her to be their manager. Reid released the group from its management deal, but they remained signed to Pebbitone, and Reid continued to receive a share of their earnings. Also in 1994, TLC played the musical group "Sex as a Weapon" in the New Line Cinema feature film House Party 3, starring Kid 'n Play.

1993–96: CrazySexyCool[edit]
Lopes began dating Atlanta Falcons American football player Andre Rison shortly after the release of Oooohhh... On the TLC Tip, and by 1994 the two were living together in Rison's upscale double-story home. Their relationship was allegedly filled with violent moments, and Lopes filed an assault charge against Rison on September 2, 1993. Rison denied battering her. Lopes was also battling alcoholism at the time. She had been a heavy drinker since the age of fifteen. After another fight between the couple in the early morning hours of June 9, 1994, Lopes tossed numerous pairs of Rison's newly purchased shoes into a bathtub, doused them with lighter fluid, and lit them on fire. The plexiglasbathtub quickly melted and set the structural frame of the house on fire. Lopes was arrested and indicted on charges of first-degree arson; she was sentenced to five years ofprobation and a $10,000 fine. Rison eventually reconciled with Lopes, and they continued dating on and off for seven years.[17]

During early 1994, TLC re-entered the studio with Dallas Austin, Tim & Bob, Arnold Hennings, Jermaine Dupri, Babyface, Jon-John Robinson, Organized Noize, and Sean "Puffy" Combs to record their second album, CrazySexyCool. Lopes was released from rehab to attend the recording sessions, but the finished album featured significantly less of her raps and vocals. The album instead focused more on the contributions from Watkins and Thomas, and had a smoother, more fluid sound, similar to the most successful single from the first album, the US #2 hit "Baby-Baby-Baby".[18] All four singles from CrazySexyCool reached the top 5 of the US Hot 100, while "Creep" and "Waterfalls" peaked at no. 1, while Red Light Special reached no. 2 and "Diggin' on You" reached no. 5. "Waterfalls",[18] an Organized Noise-produced song that featured an old-school soul-based musical arrangement, socially conscious lyrics criticizing drug dealing and unsafe sex, and an introspective rap from Lopes, became TLC's biggest hit, and its million-dollar music video was an MTV staple for many months. Also in 1994, TLC recorded the theme song to Nickelodeon's popular sketch comedy All That which was produced and co-written by Arnold Hennings which ran for ten seasons.

CrazySexyCool eventually sold over 11 million copies in the US; however, worldwide sales exceed 15 million copies, and became one of the first albums to ever receive a diamond certification from the RIAA,[15] and won a 1996 Grammy Award for Best R&B Album and a 1996 Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group for "Creep".[19]However, in the midst of their apparent success, the members of TLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 3, 1995.[20]

1995-96: Bankruptcy[edit]
They declared debts totaling $3.5 million, much of it because of Lopes' insurance payments arising from the arson incident and Watkins' medical bills, but the primary reason being that each member of the group was taking home less than $35,000 a year after paying managers, producers, expenses, and taxes. They sought to renegotiate their 1991 contract with LaFace, under which they only received a maximum of eight percent of the revenues from their album sales—considerably less than most major recording contracts—and to dissolve their association with Pebbitone. Most record companies would re-negotiate record contracts when the artist achieved significant record sales, but LaFace Records refused to meet the demands of TLC, thus prompting the filing of the bankruptcy petition.[21] Both Pebbitone and LaFace countered that TLC simply wanted more money and were in no real financial danger, resulting in two years of legal debates before the cases were finally settled in late 1996. TLC's contract was renegotiated and their production deal with Pebbitone and Perri Reid (who had separated from her husband by this time) was rescinded.

The group appeared on the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack with "This Is How It Works" (a song written by Babyface and Lopes) and was set to re-enter the recording studio the following year after signing a new contract with LaFace/Arista.