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TLC's self-titled album, which will be released
on Friday, is the group's first studio album in 15 years and the
first without band member Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, who died in a
car crash in Honduras in 2002 and was last featured on TLC's
"3D" album released that year.
Surviving members Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozonda "Chilli"
Thomas turned to the Kickstarter funding website in 2015 to get
backing for the new album, billing it as their final one. They
raised nearly three times their goal of $150,000.
"The way the record deals are now ... we're not interested in
anything like that," Thomas said.
"When Bill (Diggins, TLC's manager) told us about Kickstarter
and we could involve our fans and all that kind of stuff that,
you know, we did. That was the right way and that made the
timing right."
Thomas, Watkins and Lopes collaborated on 1990s hits such as "No
Scrubs," "Unpretty" and "Waterfalls." Lopes is included on the
new album through soundbites of an old interview, Watkins said.
"It's the essence of what you remember her for, that loud spunky
voice," Watkins said. "Her talking about what we thought in an
interview about like, 'They say we weren't going to sell no
albums, wait a minute, what you mean we ain't going to sell no
albums.' So you know, it's like what you loved her for."
While TLC will no longer make albums, Watkins said she and
Thomas are leaving the door open to other ways of collaborating
and keeping TLC's legacy alive.
"If we do a residency in Vegas that would be awesome. And you
never know, we might do movies and other things," Watkins said.
(Reporting by Alicia Powell; Writing by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing
by Bill Trott)
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