Picture it: Grammy night, 2018. Ed Sheeran walks out to perform his smash single Shape of You, nominated for several awards. Midway through, the song morphs into the two-decade-old hit that sort of inspired it, so much so that Sheeran decided to share Shape of You‘s authorship with its songwriters.

Out walk the women who sang the song, Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, as Shape of You melts into TLC’s No Scrubs.

Cool idea, right? Wouldn’t that be a great Grammy moment?

For her part, Chilli’s on board. There’s just one problem she has with the Shape of You/No Scrubs connection.

“I didn’t think it sounded anything like No Scrubs,” she said with a laugh, by phone from her home in Atlanta. “I listened to it over and over again, and I sing it all the time, and I’m just like, I don’t hear it! I think Ed should have reached out to me first and been like, ‘Yo, what do you guys think?’ before he wrote that check! That was nice of him to do, but I promise you, for the life of me, I can’t hear it.”

Sheeran may simply have been covering his freckly keister by sharing songwriting credit for his biggest hit to date, but that takes nothing away from whatever influence the chart-topping pop trio may have had on his music. Twenty-five years after TLC’s debut album Ooooooohhh … On the TLC Tip, T-Boz and Chilli are as busy as they’ve been since the 2002 death of bandmate Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, releasing their final studio album in June and embarking on a series of ’90s nostalgia tours, including one that hits Al Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg on Sept. 10.

“We’re always nervous right before a show, always, and still, once we’re on that stage, that energy from the crowd really gets us pumped,” Chilli said. “We’re very blessed to be in the position to still have longevity, that people still want to hear your songs and are even interested in new music, and want new music from you, which is what we’ve given them,”

Thanks to a string of Top 10 singles between 1992 and 1999 — Creep, Red Light Special, Waterfalls, No Scrubs, Unpretty — TLC was one of the biggest pop and R&B bands on the planet, their popularity helping usher in the tween-pop and girl- and boy-band boom of the late ’90s. Openers on their 1999-2000 FanMail Tour included Destiny’s Child and Christina Aguilera.

But all of it came with enough baggage to fill several documentaries and biopics — which were, in fact, eventually filmed. There were intraband feuds, a bout with Chapter 11 bankruptcy, serious illnesses and loads of relationship drama. It all came to a head in 2002 when Left Eye, the group’s rapper and most combustible personality, was killed in a car accident in Honduras.

“When it happens, you’re just discombobulated,” Chilli said. “You can’t think. All you’re doing is hurting. And it’s just pain. Pain, pain, pain and nothing else for a while. Then you try to get your thoughts together when the pain subsides a little and you can think. But until that happens, you can’t think clearly.”

Left Eye’s death ground TLC to a halt. Chilli and T-Boz made joint appearances and even a few performances, but also did their own thing. Both took acting and reality show gigs, with Chilli’s resume including VH1’s celebreality series What Chilli Wants.

“We were just broken in ways that you can’t even imagine,” Chilli said. “Those times were the hardest times. Through the years, as time has gone on, time does heal, but you’re never over something like that 100 percent. It’s impossible.”

Compared to the rest of their career, TLC’s last couple of years have seemed like a breeze. In 2015 they announced they would crowdfund their final studio album on Kickstarter, and they embarked on a tour with New Kids on the Block and Nelly. T-Boz and Chilli both kept acting, with Chilli appearing as Zora Neale Hurston in next month’s Thurgood Marshall biopic Marshall. It’s a small role, but one she describes as “comedic” and “like a firecracker.”

“Zora Neale Hurston is one of my mom’s favorite writers,” she said. “She has her books and everything. She helped me understand who she was as a writer, and then her connection with Langston Hughes, which I didn’t know, so it was some history learning right there for me.”

TLC’s new tour “feels more like a celebration for us, just that we’re able to continue this legacy, and (Left Eye’s) legacy lives on through us forever, as long as we’re performing and alive,” she said. (Asked if TLC would ever cede Left Eye’s vocals to another rapper, she bristled: “You’re going to hear Lisa’s voice. It’s her, doing her own stuff. We wouldn’t have anybody else do that.”)

To Chilli, it matters not only that artists like Ed Sheeran are paying homage to TLC’s work by crediting No Scrubs‘ songwriters (if not TLC themselves) on Shape of You. It’s meaningful that she’s seeing young fans, kids who weren’t even born when CrazySexyCool or FanMail came out, coming to shows with all TLC’s classic dance moves memorized.

“This last show we had, it was three kids under the age of 9, and they were paying homage to Left Eye with their hairstyles and everything. I promise you, they knew every word to all of our songs,” she said. “It almost brought tears to my eyes. It was like, What? This is crazy! It’s just such a blessing that our music can resonate like that with anybody. As an artist, that’s the stuff you pray for.”

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Contact Jay Cridlin at cridlin@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8336. Follow @JayCridlin.

BY ROB LEVY for THE UNION LEADER

Time hasn’t stood still for this top-charting pop act of the ‘90s.

“What people love about our group is the lyrical content,” said Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas of TLC, the Atlanta-bred group behind the hit songs “Creep,” “Waterfalls,” “No Scrubs” and “Unpretty.”

“We are always talking about something, whether it is a political thing (or) what is going on in the world,” Thomas said. “We still talk about girl-power stuff and female empowerment. We are always going to do that.”

TLC is out on tour as part of the I Love the 90’s – The Party Continues tour. Thomas and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins will co-headline the show with Naughty by Nature at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford. The bill also will include Color Me Badd, Rob Base, Coolio and C&C Music Factory.

TLC has released its first album in 15 years. It’s also the first since band mate Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes died in 2002.

“Everything else can be new – the sound and music wise – and it is with this album. But we made sure the lyrical content is intact,” said Thomas of continuing the group’s outspoken voice.

The new song “Perfect Girl,” she said, is very different from the ensemble’s No. 1 90’s hit “Unpretty” in terms of its sound. Still, it touches on a comparable theme, about notions of unrealistic perfection.

“You take Instagram. These girls just post pictures of themselves all day,” said Thomas. “It is almost like a profession. By the time they post a picture, it doesn’t look anything like them because they have doctored it up.”

It’s all part of an unattainable quest, Thomas said.

“We are all flawed,” she said. “We bring light to that in that song.”

In another new song, “Haters,” TLC touches on cyber bullying.

“We always talk about things that are happening, but it’s in a fun way. We are not preachy,” she said. “You can sing along and it is fun, but at the same time you are singing along with something that is talking about something that is relevant.”

TLC was never afraid to speak out; for the anthem “Ain’t to Proud to Beg,” the group pinned condoms to their clothes as a fashion statement, and Lopes famously covered her left eye with one. It was all with an edgy nod to empowerment and safe sex.

In reflecting on their career, which took off with the 1992 debut album, “Ooooooohhh …, On the TLC Tip,” Thomas said they have learned many lessons along the way.

“This is a business,” she said. “Even though you can seem to be friends with execs and radio people, you are really not. It is all business. I’m sure there’s a level of respect there…

“At the end of the day, unless you are making a lot of money for the record company or there is a hot juice story about you, they are going to do their job. You can’t take it personal,” Thomas said.

She wishes she knew that “hard lesson” years ago, before conflicts arose in the group and beyond.

When asked how she would hope TLC is remembered by fans and general society alike, she said, “as an outside-the-box kind of group.

“We were a group that really stood for being yourself and being true to yourself,” she said. “We are real serious about that kind of stuff in everything that we do and say, both inside and outside the group. It’s who we are.”

The artists performing at the 4th annual T-Boz Unplugged event have been officially revealed!

So far, the line-up includes the talented Frankie J. and Kamaiyah, who will both join T-Boz for this one night only event for charity, whilst DJ Angie Vee returns to spin records to entertain the guests.

There is a special 2 for 1 ticket deal which ends TONIGHT so don’t miss out!

Head to TBozUnplugged.com for ticket info, and use the code BOGO50 to get your 2 for 1 ticket deal today.

Don’t forget you can catch T-Boz in person during her Tea Time with T-Boz events co-running with the remaining TLC ‘I Love The 90s: The Party Continues’ tour dates.

20 years ago, TLC were on hiatus, following the multi-platinum success of their album “CrazySexyCool“.

They were legally restricted from recording as a group during this time, due to the bankruptcy proceedings they were encountering.

This gave the ladies time to focus on their own individual ventures. Chilli gave birth to her son, Tron, and T-Boz released her debut solo single, “Touch Myself“, for the Fled movie soundtrack.

Left Eye collaborated with Lil Kim on a remix to her song “Not Tonight“, taken from her debut 1996 album ‘Hard Core‘.

The remix turned into a whole new song, sampling Kool & The Gang’s “Ladies Night”, and featured fellow rappers Da Brat, Missy Elliott and DJ Angie Martinez, for the Martin Lawrence movie soundtrack, ‘Nothing To Lose‘.

The success of the song and hit video led to the ladies being invited to perform it for the first time together at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards.

That years award show was highly memorable, with performances by the Spice Girls “Say You’ll Be There“, Marilyn Manson “The Beautiful People“, Jamiroquai “Virtual Insanity“, Puff Daddy “I’ll Be Missing You“ and presentations by Madonna (paying tribute to Princess Diana), Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and more!

Here’s a recap of the spectacular Ladies Night performance!