The year was 1992 when over 30,000 people died of the deadly sexually transmitted disease, AIDS. By the end of that year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had announced that it had also become the number one cause of death for men aged 25-44 in the United States. And yet the mention of a life-saving condom was too taboo to talk, let alone sing, about.
Enter that same year, a new all-female singing group and their song, “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg.” Just like that, while people were literally dying from having sex, in a way that wasn’t didactic or preaching, T-Boz, Left Eye, and Chilli, known as TLC, made wearing protective condoms — even on one’s clothes and on top of one’s eyes — cool. They were immediately deemed controversial by the media and simultaneously solidified their place in history as having used music to affect cultural change across the globe.
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TLC is one of the best-selling American girl groups of all time (the documentary notes that they’ve sold 95 million records) and arguably the most influential. To remind everyone of all the reasons why this group’s contribution to popular culture, history, and music was not just revolutionary, but also timeless and impactful, comes TLC Forever, a captivating must-watch and heart-warming documentary from Lifetime.
How It Started and How It’s Going
For the first time, T-Boz and Chilli, along with their long-standing manager Bill Diggins and other music industry executives and friends, share their stories and memories on how TLC captured the music world by condom, broke endless records, and survived, and are still surviving, against so many endless odds.
Formed in Atlanta, Georgia in 1990, the original concept behind the formation of TLC was to become a female version of the hit music group, BBD (Bell Biv Devoe), an offspring of New Edition. There was Tionne, the “T,” Lisa, the “L,” and Crystal. Wait, who?
Among many fun, funny, and heart-wrenching behind-the-hits memories, TLC Forever explores the origin of the group, and that includes how the third member was originally a singer named Crystal, who was let go before they’d even recorded an album. Enter Rozanda as Crystal’s replacement with a new nickname, “Chilli.” The chemistry between the three ignited, and together they soared through the stratosphere.
Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg
Sony Music Entertainment
LaFace Records
In their fresh and aesthetically innovative debut music video, “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg,” Tionne Watkins (T-Boz), Lisa Lopes (Left Eye), and Rozonda Thomas (Chilli) wore bold and bright colors as they sang and rapped unabashedly about safe sex and women’s carnal liberation. What their music stood for was authentic to what they represented as a collective unit, but also what they each inherently believed. Women should be allowed to speak their minds, to blatantly desire sex just as men do, and should not have to put their bodies on display for objectification to sell records.
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While other all-girl groups popular at the time were donning form-fitting dresses and high heels, TLC wore baggy pants and oversized shirts. They danced on videos and on stages in playful, funny, and even tomboyish ways instead of sultry and suggestive. With a unique and distinct sound that blended funk, hip-hop and R&B, they released fun girl power anthems and the resulting record sales validated their efforts. The TLC Forever documentary serves a timely reminder of hope that could, and in some ways perhaps should, be a source of inspiration for female artists today.
No disrespect to any current or futures artists who have wanted a provocative image for themselves, but to an up-and-coming group or singer or rapper on the rise who might be conflicted, maybe, just maybe, this documentary can offer a ray of re-consideration that it’s not necessary to be half naked as an entry fee for high-level musical achievement.
TLC never did and still, today, even without a current number-one hit on the music charts, their music is timeless, and they still sell out concerts. In fact, the documentary shows how they recently performed as invited guests at England’s Glastonbury Festival, one of the world’s largest outdoor music events with an audience of over 200,000.
Love and Inspiration
Sony Music Entertainment
Epic
The TLC Forever documentary reveals some of the inspirations and internal concerns of some of TLC’s chart-topping songs. For example, with the song “Unpretty,” we learn who among the three of them felt exactly that way at the time of the song’s writing. We learn, too, how with “Waterfalls,” the group’s second successful musical effort to amplify awareness of the AIDS epidemic, each of the three of them contributed to the concepts and looks behind its definitive music video.
For “Creep,” the documentary reveals which among the three of them was uncomfortable with the song lyrics and understandably why.
Throughout the documentary, we get intimate glimpses into their lives, and explore such things as how the romantic relationship between Chilli and TLC’s music producer, Dalla Austin, developed and ultimately why it fizzled after the birth of their son together. We see T-Boz’s wedding with rapper Mack 10 and their children. And, yes, the documentary also re-visits the much-written about love story between Left Eye and Andre Rison, then wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons. Theirs was a pairing that was deemed “Atlanta Royalty” until, well, arson happened and it wasn’t.
But the greatest love story in this documentary is the solidarity of sisterhood among the members of TLC through it all.
T-Boz Gets Vulnerable
Lifetime
Perhaps the most gripping aspect of TLC Forever is seeing T-Boz in such a vulnerable light and seeing Chilli console her. While fans of the group have always known about T-Boz’s battle since birth with Sickle Cell Anemia — she’s been a spokesperson and often shared her testimony about beating the survival odds — we’ve never heard her talk much about the deeply personal physical details surrounding it as well as her other life-threatening health challenges.
And, we’ve rarely, if ever, seen her cry about any of it until now.
T-Boz has always been the visibly strong and “cool” one of the “Crazy, Sexy, Cool” singing group, but now fans will see her in a less guarded, but equally respectable, way that makes one love her and root for her continued perseverance even more. T-Boz explains her journey with acoustic neuroma, a benign brain tumor that was pressed against her right cerebellum affecting her facial, balance, and hearing nerves. It’s tough and yet somehow it is also empowering to watch her talk about enduring through it.
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There is, too, the inevitable journey back through the tragic passing of Left Eye. While viewers may know the inevitable car accident will happen, there is something still very tender about getting to the part in their journey when she took the ill-fated trip to Honduras. It is so bittersweet to see the full group’s last performance together in the year 2000 and to see the surviving two members, T-Boz and Chilli, reminisce about the good times with Left Eye.
Ultimate Reasons to Watch TLC Forever
Lifetime
TLC has always provided songs for the ultimate playlist for women’s empowerment. Along the way, they have also always cared deeply about the fans that they know they have affected, even dedicating the insert of their album FanMail to fold out into a poster highlighting the names of thousands who had sent them letters over the years.
TLC paved the way for countless other groups such as Destiny’s Child, the Spice Girls, and endless more. They made it acceptable to be socially aware in hip-hop and pop/R&B music and kept it all fun at the same time. They also helped Atlanta establish itself as “the Motown of the South,”
As a group they endured so much financially, emotionally and physically. Despite every trial and tribulation, their (often unspoken yet always persistent) collective message of determination was made clear through their actions. Now, decades after they inspired fans around the world with their music and platform, they are still inspiring with their lives. Whether it’s their dedication to being great mothers, or T-Boz’s health triumphs, or Chilli’s commitment to faith, they continue to inspire believers. Perhaps T-Boz put it best, when expressing what fans have always seen in them and what they can still hold on to now more than ever. “You have to remember that you have to believe in yourself, too,” said T-Boz.
Thankfully TLC continues to do so. Fans can now show appreciation to TLC by watching this documentary, TLC Forever, as part of Lifetime’s upcoming “Voices of a Lifetime” summer series in honor of Black Music Month. It airs on June 3 at 8 PM.
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