ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY DOUBLE J, JUNE 2019
A look at how the Atlanta girl group became figureheads for independent womanhood in one of R&B's most potent decades.
The 1990s saw the development of a strain of R&B that has endured in its appeal and popularity. In 2019, this style has begun to see a renaissance through a new generation of artists.
The development of TLC though, from their New Jack Swing-rooted debut, Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip in 1992, to the seminal CrazySexyCool two years later, saw a definite change in the R&B landscape. A change that contemporaries like Aaliyah and Destiny's Child would follow.
To better understand the impact of TLC on the wider R&B landscape, one only need to take a look at the music theirs was being released alongside.
Influential producers of the time including Babyface, Jermaine Dupri, Rico Wade, Darkchild and Teddy Riley ushered in a new era of music that blended contemporary R&B with hip hop and New Jack Swing, throwing a spotlight on artists who oozed sensuality, embraced the ballad and rode on insatiable grooves.
Still, while men in R&B were getting in touch with their sensitive, sexier sides through the decade, women often still played a tight set of roles; the scorned girlfriend, the vixen, the heartbreaker, the heartbroken.
By the end of the 1990s, pop music had the likes of Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Janet Jackson, Lauryn Hill and Sade standing strong in going toe to toe with Boyz II Men, Dru Hill and a baby-faced Usher.
Pioneering a real representation of womanhood, in particular black womanhood, TLC’s longevity stems from the unabashed honesty in their lyrics and an effortless, engaging delivery.
The group’s career, though marred by internal creative conflict, eventual bankruptcy and publicised personal problems, persevered musically, leading TLC to become the best-selling American girl group of all time.
Between albums two and three, CrazySexyCool and FanMail, we got to see three women on a rollercoaster journey. Yet, creatively, their music and messaging remained unshakeable.
CrazySexyCool: The Red Light Special
The release of CrazySexyCool marked a new chapter for TLC. While they swapped the baggy jeans and condom-glasses for crop tops and smoulders, the empowering lyrical threads that wove their way through TLC’s debut album remained permanently at the core of their second.
Everything about CrazySexyCool was more mature than anything TLC had done before, but it wasn’t forced.
Between Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins, Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes and Rozonda ‘Chilli’ Thomas, there existed a dynamic that flourished on each other’s strengths.
T-Boz, with her frank and raw alto style. Left Eye, with her lyrical prowess that easily put her in the same league as Tupac Shakur. Chilli, with the ethereal sense of cool that we see mirrored in the likes of FKA twigs and Teyana Taylor today.
The material on CrazySexyCool featured songs about sex, love, loss and consequence. But, more importantly, the album was a statement that women were firmly in control. In control of how they wanted to be loved, how they engaged in sex, and that ultimately, they could play the same game as their male peers.
If Silk and Ginuwine could get away with less-than-subtle serenades on ‘Freak Me’ and ‘Pony', then best believe TLC could deliver the same type of bedroom jam with ‘Red Light Special’.
One of the album’s biggest singles, ‘Creep’, gave the long-told narrative of an unfaithful relationship a different spin. Instead of wallowing over her man stepping out, the female at the centre of the song decides to do the same back.
Geared towards female empowerment, the single’s release did not sit right with Left Eye, whose original rap (which didn’t make the final edit) acts as a caution against cheating-as-revenge.
“Creepin’ may cause hysterical behaviour in the mind/Put your life in a bind/And in time make you victim to a passionate crime…”
Regardless of which version you prefer, both stand as examples where TLC flipped the script in offering different perspectives on an infidelity narrative that had been so normalised by the culture and, in many ways, would continue to be in subsequent decades.
The other notable release from the album came in the defining single ‘Waterfalls’.
Unprotected sex, HIV/AIDS and gang violence are explored against Organized Noize production and effortless harmonies. Memorable for its music video and one of Left Eye’s most popular raps, ‘Waterfalls’ is a touchstone of TLC’s catalogue.
Funky R&B that was accessible enough to cross over into the pop realm, the single brought TLC more acclaim and took CrazySexyCool into the upper echelons of those 90s records that have become essentials for any R&B fan.
FanMail: A fighting return
As the year 2000 approached, a futuristic aesthetic became the driving force behind the third TLC record, FanMail. Arriving almost five years after CrazySexyCool, the album is a thank you to TLC fans, as much as a strong return for the group, who had weathered bankruptcy and a rough recording hiatus.
While the chart climate had changed in the interim, with names like Backstreet and Britney blowing up, TLC remained true to their messaging and as a result of expert R&B production courtesy of Dallas Austin, Babyface, Jermaine Dupri, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis buoying the trio’s finessed writing and vocal delivery, FanMail became another critical success.
The success of a song like 'No Scrubs' speaks largely to the space TLC was bringing the 'Girl Power' movement into, as a younger demographic of fan was entering adolescence of their own.
The central message of women knowing their own worth and refusing to lower their standards for any man formed a song that has become one of TLC's most beloved.
A message that hasn't dated, and has been covered by artists as varied from Weezer to Kacey Musgraves, the heavyweight of FanMail holds up even now, 20 years on.
Tapping into insecurities and anxieties surrounding body image on 'Unpretty' proved to be another game changer for TLC's musical output, and provided a contrast to the tougher, gritter sounds with which FanMail was synonymous.
Layered synths, strings and guitars provided a simple, though beautiful backdrop to a timeless song that perhaps has even more relevance today, in an age dominated by social media.
'Maybe get rid of you/And then I'll get back to me.'
The album was a snapshot of TLC in a different phase of their careers; hardened and with perspective. No longer R&B darlings to be moulded in the vision of a plethora of male industry, these women positioned themselves in a strong position to emerge into the new millennium more empowered than ever.
A love letter to self-appreciation, self-love and female strength, FanMail would be the last album TLC would make before Left Eye's death, which makes its poignancy even heavier. Yet as a standalone record, its importance at the end of the 90s is untouchable.
Another prime example of TLC’s creative strides out of the shadows of a tomboy-fresh adolescence and into an adulthood soundtracked by music equal parts self-aware, sexy, and independent.