BioHere is my introduction... from YSB Magazine, written by Tonya Pendleton.
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If I was your girlfriend would u let me dress u
I mean help you pick out your clothes before we go out
Not that you're helpless, but sometimes, those are the things that bein'
in love's about
--"If I Was Your Girlfriend" –prince
It's a dead-on remake down to the lead vocal. It takes a few bars before the voice becomes clearly distinguishable from Prince's and you can recognize the raspy alto of Tionne Tenece Watkins, who's better known to TLC fans as T-Boz. In its original form, the song described a man who wondered if his woman could accept his feminine side. This version is one of longing–a woman laying her feelings bare, but without sacrificing her dignity. Watkins, 24, who along with her partners Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas, 23, and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, 23, form the group TLC, owe their success to the multitudes of young women who desire to be accepted for themselves while they struggle toward womanhood.
Their first album Ooooooohhh On the TLC Tip sold 2.8 million copies
because it expresses the voice of young women who want to relate to men, but on their own terms. From the sexual honesty of "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" to the need to have a relationship that stimulates more than just the body in "Baby, Baby, Baby," this trio hit a nerve. Despite their baggy clothes and strong sense of self, which made them the antithesis of most successful female groups, the baby-faced trio was also accepted warmly by men. Although the seriousness of their safe-sex message could have distanced potential fans, their openness and sense of humor about the necessity of condoms made them even more popular.
The enormity of their appeal may lie in their own lives. Like the young
women who've responded to their music, TLC faced several personal and professional challenges even before they got together. Their childhoods were not easy. While much publicity is given to the effect of absent or
distant fathers on Black males, the members of TLC are living proof of
how growing up without a father can affect young women. After working hard to reach a level of success most artists never see, they had to seize more control of their own careers, while dealing with newfound fame and money and their own personal lives.
Taking a stand and gaining control--
Thomas, Watkins and Lopes are all diminutive women. Watkins is the
tallest at 5'-2", and, like the others, weighs in at no more than 105
pounds and wears a size four (men's) sneaker. The group shows up for
today's interview at LaFace Records in Atlanta in gear similar to, but a little more adult, than what they wear onstage. Watkins is in baggy
denim jeans and a zippered denim shirt, Thomas wears at mauve T-shirt, knotted at the navel, with pale yellow sweatpants, and Lopes has on a
multicolored polo shirt with grey sweatpants.
They are not glamorous women. Makeup is minimal, manicures are simple and jewelry is subtle. If their wardrobes contain stockings, high heels,
Lycra or other trappings of womanhood, it is their secret vice.Yet they
are startlingly pretty and emphatically female. Conversation over a
Chinese-food lunch in the conference room is girl talk–you know, birth
control, men and sex.
But the funky informality of female bonding turns serious when the
subject changes to business. After what they say were a host of
conflicts over the direction of the group and their own lack of input,
they elected to leave Pebbles, their first manager, last year. TLC went
without management for months until they decided to go with Hiriam
Hicks, who also manages BBD and Keith Sweat. It was a painful situation that forced Watkins, Thomas and Lopes to regroup.
"We were the ones sitting back watching everybody trying to see how things worked. All we knew to do was what we were told. Once you realize this is not just a dream-come-true, this is actually your career, your life, that's when you start taking it more seriously. That's when you want to be in charge so nobody messes it up."
With the help of boy wonder producer Dallas Austin (Boyz II Men, ABC), author of three-out-of-four of the singles released on the last album, their new album, Crazysexycool, continues the straight ahead female vibe of the first. This is not the contradiction it might seem. Though Austin does have final say this time as executive producer and is writing 10 songs, the group credits him with understanding their musical and visual ideas.
"He knows us," says Watkins, whose subtle sensuality seems even more
appealing because of her unawareness of it. "And I don't care who wrote what, if I don't believe in it, I won't sing it. He respects us. Even though a song may be about him, they're also about us. They're
universal. It just can't be about, 'I went up the street and I, the
producer, got jacked,'" she says with a laugh. "We've talked and we know each other's lives."
Their second album unveils TLC's new sound and look. The songs are
earthier R&B and more intensely personal. Their clothes are still baggy, but more revealing, exposing a little skin. TLC feels good about the
support they got and the fan base they developed on the first album, but are nervously awaiting the response this time, hoping not to be
victimized by the sophomore jinx.
"Coming out this time was a lot harder than the first time," says
Thomas, an almond-eyed natural beauty with an impressively flat stomach and the lithe body of a gymnast. "When you're a new group and you make it, it's hard a second time because you have to be accepted again. Everybody's going to criticize you even more, because they want to say, 'They ain't nothing but a fad. Can they do it again?' You've got to remain strong and not let the business overwhelm you."
Growing up is hard to do--
Aside from business problems, the women have had to deal with personal turmoil. At first glance, their lives seem enviable. They drive
expensive cars, live well and, despite all their responsibilities, they
can still get silly. But all three grew up in broken homes: Thomas in
Atlanta, Watkins in Des Moines, Iowa, then Atlanta; and Lopes in
Philadelphia. Though Watkins says she was spoiled, none of them grew up in wealthy households. Both Thomas and Watkins were the recipients of harassment and threats while growing up from other girls jealous of
their looks. Watkins is telling her story while being made up for the
YSB photo shoot, and she soon has both the makeup artist and the
hairstylist cracking up. She laughs, too, but it couldn't have been
funny at the time. "There were 38 girls in gym class," Watkins says.
"And 37 turned on me." She eventually escaped a beating, convincing the girls she was crazy by threatening to take on all of them. Thomas, Lopes and Watkins herself say that her reserve with those she doesn't know well can cause others to misjudge her. "I'm not stuck-up," she says. "It's just that people are so doggish in this world that I just sit back and spectate. I'm not fake. If I don't like you, you'll damn sure know it."
One thing Watkins didn't like was working a regular job. She has been a hair model, shampoo girl and manicurist, but says she always wanted to be on t.v. (If you look hard enough, you'll see her and Lopes in
Pebbles' "Playground" video, which made her feel at the time that she'd accomplished her goal.) She grew up singing in church with her mother,
who once sang in a group with Watkins' father.
"I had big dreams," she says. "I didn't know it was going to happen, but I prayed and prayed."
Like Watkins, Thomas' looks subjected her to cruel teasing most of her
life. "They called me half-breed, Black Jap and wetback," she remembers. "I was always fighting." Thomas, whose mother was 17 when she was born, says that her great-grandmother and mother created a positive atmosphere that counteracted the project environment she grew up in. "I had so much love when I was little, my first words were 'I love you,'" she says. After high school, Thomas spent two years at Georgia Southern University, initially seeking a career in fashion. She'd just been hired as a retail manager at a store in Atlanta's Underground Mall when she found out she'd gotten a spot dancing for Damian Dame. She chose to dance, though her only experience was breakdancing in an Atlanta group called the Showcase Baby Dolls. "I never thought about this," she says.
Lopes never wanted to do anything else. She was determined to be an
entertainer, performing in talent shows and doing anything she could
onstage or behind the scenes. Fleeing family problems, she moved to
Atlanta and started TLC with Watkins and another girl. It didn't work
out, and they were looking for a third member when Thomas was introduced to them.
Even though Lopes will join in conversation and fun enthusiastically
when asked, her mind always seems to be elsewhere. The other two say
she's generous almost to a fault and will give anyone in need whatever
she has. She's started a management company, Left Eye Management,
discovered teen rappers Illegal (who have since split up) and has other
groups coming out. Since her father's death in 1991 and her subsequent
success, Lopes has shouldered the financial responsibility for her
family. She's purchased cars for her mother, younger brother and sister, and is paying college tuition for both siblings. When her family was together, her father was physically abusive to her mother. At one point, Lopes was estranged from her mother, living wherever she could and drinking to deal with it all.
Lopes admits the past may have played a part in her volatile
relationship with Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Andre Rison, to whom
she's now engaged. A public dispute between the two last summer led to their arrest. While it was widely reported that Rison was assaulting
Lopes, she says that wasn't true. If anyone was physically aggressive,
she says, it was she.
"Me and Andre, we're not the couple people would expect us to be," she says. "[We're not] like two stars together. We're just two Black ghetto m–-f–s whose hearts and minds are still back home. We just live in nicer homes now and we drive nicer cars."
Lopes was arrested again a week later after a Falcons game trying to
leave the Georgia Dome with a drink. And soon after, her cousin's infant was killed when Lopes' car was accidentally knocked out of gear and rolled down an incline. (Lopes was not in the car at the time.) She
feels that trouble seems to follow her, even when it comes to music.
While her raps dominated much of the last album, this time the songs are more R&B. Lopes wrote several of her own songs, on which Austin wanted to make adjustments. She refused. They ended up compromising by having Lopes record a song with KayGee (from Naughty by Nature) and other producers, some of which Lopes paid for herself.
Surviving the game--
Female groups, particularly the most successful ones, have always been
almost completely produced and directed by men. The Supremes and
Ronettes in the '60s and SWV, En Vogue and Salt 'N' Pepa today have had men making the major decisions. Because of that, many of the groups were male fantasies of what women should be like–always dressed provocatively and singing about heartbreak. When the restrictions chafed and the women wanted to assert themselves, they were discouraged. But Austin's relationship with the group seems a little more equitable.
Austin explains he has no problem with the group writing songs, he just
has to make sure they are hits. And he emphasizes that a good song is
not always a hit song. "This is what I've made my profession," he
says. ''I would only do what would help [a] record out, not hurt it. A
lot of times when you write a record that's very personal to you it's
hard for you to let someone say, 'Okay, well this should be this way and that should be that way.'''
One of the songs Lopes wanted to do was about her relationship with her father, a sensitive subject for all three women. Watkins' father wasn't around for most of her life, and Thomas never knew her father.
"I don't think people take seriously how much not having a father can
affect a child's life," Watkins says. "If you have a father that's all
b.s., it's better just not to have one at all. Let the family replace
the love that the father couldn't give." Watkins says that it's affected
her choice of men. "I think I like men who are not so much a father
figure but can protect me and are hard. That's what my father wasn't. My mother was that hard person. But I don't trip on it, because every man ain't alike."
Ask TLC about men, and you'll get a mysterious smile from Thomas, who says she's been in love for the past 3-1/2 years, but declines to say
with whom. Watkins says she's chillin' but won't confirm or deny whether it's with Mr. Dalvin from Jodeci. What she will say is that any man she deals with has to treat her right.
They all love what they do, and they've grown accustomed to their
lifestyle. But these women are already proven survivors, and if they
ever had to work a regular job again, they could handle it. There's only
one profession the group unanimously rejects.
"Even if I married a rich man, I would never quit and just let him take
care of me," Watkins says to a chorus of uh-huh's. "We have all met
[men], whether they were selling drugs or whatever, with hell-a-money,
and we could have been set up a long time ago. But everybody don't want to do it like that. I don't care (she hits the table for emphasis) how many kids I have, my husband could be the richest man in the world, I will still work. I ain't never gonna be no housewife."YSB © 1994