FEATURE:
Supernova
IN THIS PHOTO: Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes in 1999/PHOTO CREDIT: Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage
Remembering the Great Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes
__________
BORN on 27th May, 1971…
IN THIS PHOTO: TLC in 1994
there was nobody like Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes in music! On 25th April, 2002, the world lost her. Twenty years later, I wanted to include some music from her, and take a look at a great article written in 2019 that highlights what an incredible person she was. After dying at the tragically young age of thirty, there is no telling what she could have achieved. Her amazing solo album, Supernova, was released in 2001. I predict Lopes would have released a lot of albums, in addition to setting up charities and doing some amazing work. Most people know Lopes best as a third of TLC. Alongside alongside Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins and Rozonda ‘Chilli’ Thomas, the group achieved fame and huge acclaim with albums like Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip (their 1992 debut) and CrazySexyCool (1994). Not only was Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes an amazing rapper. She was an incredible writer who contributed a lot to TLC’s cannon. Co-writing incredible songs like Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg, she was this versatile writer whose rapping and flow was like nobody else’s. She also contributed to songs from other artists. Duetting with Melanie C on 2000’s Never Be the Same Again, she was also on Donnell Jones’ U Know What's Up in 1999. I will include both of those songs, in addition to a couple of TLC classics, before wrapping up. I know that the world will remember a much-missed talent on 25th April on the twentieth anniversary of her death. Before concluding, I wanted to source from an amazing article from Red Bull. In 2019, they provided a detailed history about Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes, and what she achieved in her life:
“In 2002, Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes, the hip-hop innovator of TLC, began production on a documentary intended to chronicle her time spent in Honduras. Filmed from March 30, until her death on April 25, Lopes takes fans on an intimate journey of introspection while freely running naked through waterfalls as she began building a youth camp for children.
Accompanied by her team, sister Reigndrop Lopes, and Egypt, the R&B group she was mentoring at the time, they set out to the forest to film for 30 days. “That's the plan,” Lopes says prophetically. “I say that’s the plan because things always change.” Filming ended on day 27, after a tragic car accident that took Lopes’ life. In posthumously sutured tapes, the Lauren Lazin directed film, The Last Days Of Left Eye, ominously follows the final days of the effervescent star and her struggles with art, mortality and unrelenting dark premonitions.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of TLC’s FanMail, the final album released with Lopes. Today, she would be 48 years old.
From TLC’s beginnings in 1990, Lopes’ larger-than-life attitude propelled the group forward. Her instant chemistry with Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins was akin to a sisterly bond, the two egging each other on to create aesthetics that were sometimes strange, often new yet always exciting. A dancer for Damian Dame, Rozonda Thomas completed the trio after their previous third member and founder, Crystal Jones was booted out of the group. Lopes affectionately nicknamed Thomas ‘Chilli’, who would in earnest preserve the ‘C’ in TLC.
In 1992, their debut single, Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg, a refreshing amalgam of new jack swing and R&B punctuated sexual liberation with a smirk. Dominated by the playful exuberance of Lopes who dons cartoonish neon hats, billowing parachute pants and a pair of glasses, with one lens replaced by a condom, their introduction to the world was brash but exhilarating. Delivering lines about consensual and protected sex was a strong part of the TLC package – inspired by the AIDs crisis. Unabashed pleas for pleasure were made by the seductive T’Boz with her uniquely gravelly vocals, Chilli’s sweet lilt, and Lopes’ skittish yet sharp rhymes. “2 inches or a yard rock hard or if it's saggin',”, she quips, “I ain't 2 proud 2 beg (no).”
Lopes’ vivacity is immortalised in these early moments. Whether she was dancing in the background, folding laundry or delivering the poetic equivalent of “size doesn’t matter” her presence was mesmerising.
Record label executive, L.A. Reid, who worked closely with Left Eye with LaFace Records, sees the late rapper’s resemblance in some of today’s musicians, especially in Nicki Minaj. "I see a little Left Eye in there,” he mused to The Hollywood Reporter.
The legacy continues from generation to generation: It's there on Side To Side, Ariana Grande’s collaboration with Minaj who gesticulates their Soul-Cycle inspired message, and with Rihanna refusing to mince words on S&M.
Left Eye’s goofy light-heartedness co-existed alongside her raunchy rhymes and cybergoth fashion sensibilities. She was funny, but never veered into parody. Everything about Lopes was sincere, and her ability to embody contradictory traits came down to one thing — “I’m a Gemini,” she says smiling at the camera.
“She was determined to be something in life,” Atlanta Rapper, Jermaine Dupri told MTV in 2002. “She was a true rock star. She didn’t care about no press. She was the one that would curse on TV. She had tattoos. You could expect the unexpected. When you see Lisa, you could expect something from her. That’s the gift she carried”.
"Energy never dies... it just transforms,” was Left Eye’s spiritual motto. Since her death in 2002, her inimitable mystique has endured taking on an immortal presence in pop culture. "There is a track called A New Star Is Born," Lopes told MTV in 2002, describing a forthcoming song on her solo album, Supernova. "It's saying that there is no such thing as death. I don't care what happens or what people think about death, it doesn't matter. We all share the same space." Just months after making these comments, the animated star tragically passed away.
Everything about Left Eye was larger than life and distinctly profound. Always dressing for excess, she braided her hair into colossal hoops that demanded attention and donned the wildest ensembles with all sincerity. She was the embodiment of CrazySexyCool, the futurism in FanMail and the excitement of ‘Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip’.
A supernova is “a star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness because of a catastrophic explosion that ejects most of its mass”. It can outshine entire galaxies, and radiate more energy than the sun ever can in one lifetime. Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes lives on in TLC. Everything that made her who she was, from the contradictions and controversy to championing the truth, continues to shine, radiating more energy than some stars ever will in one lifetime”.
A documentary showing the final twenty-seven days of Lopes' life, The Last Days of Left Eye, premiered in April 2007. Most of the footage was shot with a handheld camera, often in the form of diary entries filmed by Lopes while on a thirty-day spiritual retreat in Honduras (where she died in a car crash) with sister Reigndrop, brother Ronald and members of the R&B group, Egypt. The Rock star and biggest personality in TLC, I think she helped define their sound; responsible for their huge popularity and endurance. Of course, it was not all about Lopes, but she had this charisma, controversy and enormous talent that set her out as a future icon. A posthumous album, Eye Legacy, was release din 2009, though it is one of those albums, like so many posthumous releases, that seems poorly cobbled together and does not do full justice to the artist. It is best to remember Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes as a tremendous artist who, at the time of her death, was in the process of setting up two educational centers for Honduran children. She would have recorded solo music and looked ahead to a new chapter. It would be nice to think that, as TLC are still around as a duo, Lopes could have joined them for a special gig or there would have been a reunion. It makes Lopes’ death that bit more tragic when we consider what could have been. Ahead of the twentieth anniversary of her death, I wanted to include some of her music. She accomplished a lot in her life, but she was destined for so much success. Remembering the great Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes, the music world is…
NOT the same without her.