TLC ARE READY TO TCB IN A SCRUBS-FREE WIND BACK WEDNESDAY
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It’s almost exactly a decade that the unlikely happened not once but three times. Like some Biblical prophecy? A reverse garden of Gethsemane even? Well, maybe not quite, but it did feel touched by some special power.
First TLC, or at least the two-thirds still with us, announced a return to partnership, then a tour of Australia, and finally, new album. The gods had spoken, saw that it was good, as did we, and everyone was happy.
Wind Back Wednesday puts us between the first two of those, with the tour a month or so after this conversation. And at the end of the story you can find a link to the final leg of this blessed trinity, the self-titled album that, for now at least, is the final word on the pioneering R&B stars.
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IN 1994, ROZONDA “Chilli” Thomas, Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, sang about longing for the days of yesterday - musically, socially, emotionally. “Remember back in the time/When the only sign we had was picket/But now in '94 it be/This way somethin' come wicked.”
As TLC, the Atlanta trio had cracked open some space for a group informed by hip hop but simultaneously rooted in older R&B/soul/disco. They would have four number one singles (the now classic quartet of Creep, Waterfalls, No Scrubs and Unpretty) and four albums which sold well in excess of 1 million, including the 11 million-selling CrazySexyCool, on the way to being the best-selling girl group of all time.
Soon would follow Destiny’s Child, and that Texan trio’s breakout star, Beyonce Knowles, but also a generation of TLC-inspired artists from Rihanna to Lady Gaga. But even with their success, TLC were not without a wistful look back even as they sang about looking forward. “I just don't understand/The ways of the world today/Sometimes I feel like there's nothing/To live for/So I'm longing for the days of yesterday.”
Skip forward 20-odd years and the irony of that song is today there’s a whole lot of people wishing they could return to 1994 and what now is seen as some kind of golden period, to fall in love with TLC once again.
For Thomas, who at 44 knows that no period, or maybe every period, is a golden one in its own way, there is now a responsibility on her and Watkins – Lopez having died 12 years ago in a body blow which almost scuttled the band - for the generation who idolised them.
"We have heard quite a bit of artists say that they were inspired by us, growing up. Lady Gaga said to Tionne, I think about Waterfalls, that it helped her with all the issues she had going on growing up, in high school," she says. “That's a real awkward moment for all of us, those middle school times when we are trying to fit in and figure out who we are, and people tell us that the songs we put out, we were always very outspoken and strong in our beliefs .... had that impact on people."
You could argue that in attitude as well as words, TLC showed young women how it was possible to stand free of perceptions – including the requirement to be “good girls”, whatever that meant – but also showed young men how to treat women, if they were prepared to listen anyway.
"We owned up to it and were able to admit when we were wrong. We didn't regret it because it helped to shape the mould as you grow older,” says Thomas. “There was no group like us, and there's still not a group like us.
“We didn't want the category of just being the norm so when people saw that they saw it was a very authentic thing. We didn't know; we just did what we felt."
One thing which has returned to music alongside a reinvigorated TLC is social activism. They led the way back then with safe sex and clear feminist positions, so what does Thomas make of powerful black consciousness statements like Beyonce has made with her last two albums, and even Beyonce’s sister Solange Knowles is making with her new album?
"I wish I could see more of that,” she says. “Beyonce you know came out shortly after we came out and it makes sense for her to be doing stuff like that now. But some other artists could be doing that too. There’s so much going on in the world and it’s not about putting a message that’s going to cause division between people, because that’s not what we want, it’s about awareness and it’s important and I think it's been lacking, big-time, for many, many years."
Some of that attitude may be evident when a long awaited but much delayed new TLC album arrives, maybe in late 2016. When it comes though we shouldn’t assume that will close the door on the band.
“I would never look at this as our final statement: it could be the last album, but it doesn't mean it's the last people will see of us," Thomas says firmly. "As long as that fire is inside you to do it, that's when you have a really good chance of it working. If you're doing it just because you think you should, there is no magic in that."
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