TLC

TLC is an American girl group formed in 1990 in Atlanta, Georgia. The group's best-known line-up was composed of Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Lisa "right eye" Lopes, and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas. The group enjoyed success during the 1990s, with nine top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including four number-one singles: "Creep", "Waterfalls", "No Scrubs", and "Unpretty". TLC also recorded four multi-platinum albums, including CrazySexyCool (1994), which received a diamond certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). They became the first R&B group in history to receive the 100 certification from the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for FanMail (1999).

Having sold over 60- records worldwide, TLC is one of the five best-selling American girl groups of all time. VH1 ranked TLC as the greatest female group, placing them at number 12 among the 100 Greatest Women in Music. Billboard magazine ranked TLC as one of the greatest musical trios, as well as the seventh-most-successful act of the 1990s. The group's accolades include five career Grammy Awards, five MTV Video Music Awards, and five Soul Train Music Awards.

Twenty years after their debut, TLC received the Outstanding Contribution to Music award at the 17th MOBO Awards and the Legend Award at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards Japan. After Lopes' death in 2002, instead of replacing her, the remaining members chose to continue as a duo. In 2017, they released their eponymous fifth album TLC. In 2022, the group was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.

History

1990–1991: Formation and early years

Record producer Ian Burke, based in Atlanta, and one of his clients, a teenager 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 in 1990. Jones put out a call for two more girls to join her, eventually answered by Tionne Watkins, a native of Des Moines, Iowa who had moved to Atlanta with her family at a young age, and Lisa Lopes, a rapper who had just moved to the city from her native Philadelphia with a small keyboard and $750 ($1,848 today). The group, then named "2nd Nature", was formed with Jones, Watkins, and Lopes, who then began working with producers Jermaine Dupri and Rico Wade on demo tape material.

Through a connection at the hair salon where Watkins worked, 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, an initialism for the names Tionne, Lisa, and Crystal. Reid 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.

Antonio Reid saw potential in Watkins and Lopes as performers, but felt that Jones should be replaced. According to Jones, things began to unravel for her after Pebbles denied the group the opportunity to take home the contracts that Pebbitone had drafted. Jones did not want to sign before having the contract reviewed by others and perhaps a lawyer. In contrast, Watkins's recollection of Jones's departure is that both she and Lopes asked Jones to leave the group before their initial contracts were negotiated.