TLC sat down with Beats 1 on April 25, 2018, the 16th anniversary of the passing of the beloved Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes.
On Cardi B Paying Them Homage
T-Boz: “I know she wore my outfits at the Grammys and she wore Lisa’s hair. It was our whole Grammys-TLC feel when we were on stage, and she said Left Eye on one song, and paid homage to TLC on another song — our “Creep” song and then our name, too. She did it twice and she also paid us love on our page. So a lot of love — it was awesome.”
On TLC’s Legacy
T-Boz: “It’s really an honor. You never think people are going to be — like, you always wish that, you want that. We would always say, ‘we want to be trendsetters. We want little girls to dress like us.’ But when you actually see them do it for Halloween, and have birthday parties, and generations — the grandma, the mom, and the daughter — all at the concerts. It’s really amazing. We’re blessed to be 25 years in, and people are still doing it.”
Chilli: “We are really blessed. And like she said, as an artist when you’re new coming out, your dream is to be able to have that type of effect — a positive one — on everybody, and to have that longevity. You don’t know if that’s going to be your story, so time tells that, and it has. It’s been 20 plus years, and even Bruno Mars, for that matter — the video that he had featuring Cardi B — it was almost like our “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” video, and he had on a TLC t-shirt! It’s amazing and it’s a blessing for us to see that. It makes us feel really good and lets us know, OK we did it right. We’re still doing it, so yes, it is awesome.”
On The Anniversary of Left Eye’s Passing
Chilli: “First of all, when you think of the word anniversary — I mean, I know that it’s a date that something took place. But when you think about that, you think of happy times.
When people celebrate the anniversary of a wedding, or a marriage, or a relationship of any kind, and it seems like to me it’s all something cheerful, and there’s nothing cheerful to me about her passing. I mean nothing. We don’t go out of our way to do anything like that. I mean, when her birthday comes around, yes, we talk about that, but not the death.”
T-Boz: “But we celebrate it all year round. I mean really because we always incorporate her in everything we do. We always keep her memory alive. We showcase the great things, like why people loved her. So yeah, like when anybody else’s mom or sister dies, I don’t know a lot of people who celebrate cake or anything.”
Matthias Gruhn-Creutzburg
The most impressive thing about Lisa was her wonderful, extraordinary eyes. Eyes in which the universe has mirrored. When we look up to the stars, then reminds us the twinkling of the stars at Lisa’s unforgettable eyes.
Lisa was a small woman with a big, warm heart. And I promise that I will always keep her an honorable and dignified memory. Lisa has and will always have a very special place in my heart. Not a day passes in my life when I do not think about Lisa or listen to her music.
The German dramatist Bertolt Brecht has said: “Man is really dead when nobody thinks about him anymore.” Lisa will live forever in our hearts. And when we hear her music, Lisa is with us. Lisa will forever have a place in my heart. I miss her a lot.
Space travel is my world, but Lisa is the sun in my heart. When I look up to the stars, I see the sparkle in her eyes; Eyes in which the universe has mirrored.
In loving memory of Lisa Nicole “Left Eye” Lopes.