On this day 21-years-ago, TLC dropped their third studio-album, FanMail, which of course featured one of the best songs of all time, ‘No Scrubs’.
The song shot up to the top of the Billboard Charts in 1999, solidifying TLC as the biggest girl-group to ever come out of the States. And thus, on the 21st birthday of this fantastic banger, we thought we’d celebrate by looking at all the things the girl-group are up to now.
Sadly, a few years after this album came out, Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopez was tragically killed in a car crash. The rapper was conducting charity work in Honduras when she swerved off the road and was thrown from her car on April 25, 2002. A month later, TLC released their fourth studio album to critical and commercial success, before the group went notably silent.
Within the next few years, the other two members dabbled in music, but only a little bit. T-Boz notably made a track that featured on the debut Little Mix album, whilst Chilli dropped her own song in 2008 called, ‘Dumb Dumb Dumb.’ Additionally, Chilli had been expanding from music, attaching her name to a handbag company, fitness products and skincare. We stan a diverse queen.
Over a decade later, in January 2015, Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins and Rozonda ‘Chilli’ Thomas announced they wanted to make a comeback to music, asking fans to fund the project in a Kickstarter campaign. This campaign quickly became the “fastest most funded pop project in Kickstarter history.”
TLC raised over $400,000USD including contributions from many celebrities, including New Kids on the Block (donating $10,000), Katy Perry (donating $5,000), Soulja Boy, Bette Midler and Justin Timberlake. In 2017, T-Boz and Chilli released their self-titled album to critical and commercial success, charting in the top 40 of the Billboard 200.
Since then, T-Boz and Chilli have been touring the world, one festival at a time. They’ve come down under quite a few times too. And now, they’re hitting up London for the 25th anniversary of their equally as iconic album, Crazy Sexy Cool. Also, they’re set to headline Lovers and Friends Fest, which some have called the next Fyre Festival, so… we will see how that goes!
Happy 21st birthday ‘No Scrubs’, a song that will forever live in wedding playlists and R&B nights at clubs.
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