Left Eye was TLC's chief songwriter, designer and provocateur
Lisa Lopes rapped the verses, but she also co-wrote more TLC songs than her bandmates, designed outfits and even the stage for a world tour, and picked Chilli's name. Her restless solo ambitions produced a UK number one with a Spice Girl before her death in Honduras at 30.
Lopes was born in Philadelphia on May 27, 1971, to a seamstress and an army staff sergeant who ran the household, she said, like boot camp, but who also played several instruments. She picked out songs on a toy piano at five, and by ten was singing gospel at local churches with her brother and sister as The Lopes Kids. Hearing Queen Latifah and Monie Love's Ladies First at 14 moved her deeply.
In 1990 she moved to Atlanta to dance in a music video and joined a trio that became TLC, named for the first initials of its original members. When one left, manager Pebbles brought in Rozonda Thomas, and Lopes christened her Chilli so the C stayed. Her own nickname came from a compliment about her left eye; she underlined it with glasses whose right lens was covered by a condom, a nod to the group's safe-sex message. The debut album of 1992 sold six million copies, and CrazySexyCool later sold over 23 million, though a spell in rehab for alcohol left her with limited input on it.
By the time of FanMail she complained publicly that her role had shrunk to occasional eight-bar raps. In 1999 she challenged her bandmates to a three-CD contest of solo albums, with a suggested $1.5 million prize; they declined and tempers flared, though the trio described themselves as quarrelling sisters. She stayed the only member to release a solo album, scoring two US top 10 singles and topping the UK chart with Never Be the Same Again alongside Melanie C.
Behind the scenes she hosted MTV's talent show The Cut, where a then-unknown Anastacia finished third yet won a record deal, and she mentored the trio Blaque, who went platinum. She won four Grammys with TLC. On April 25, 2002, while volunteering at a children's centre in Honduras, she swerved to avoid a truck and lost control of her rental car; she was the only passenger not wearing a seatbelt, and died in the crash.
Source: Lisa Lopes
