Leon@TLCArmy
TLC were honored with an exclusive Mural dedication and art expedition on October 9, 2022 in their home city of Atlanta, GA. The event served as part of Atlanta’s 2022 ELEVATE Open Spaces Art Festival.
Good As Burgers, Can I Kick It and Press Play Entertainment were the hosts of the community block party and outdoor art mural dedication to multi-platinum, award-winning R&B recording group TLC. The event highlighted Atlanta’s music scene and art culture while bringing awareness to significant issues affecting the community.
The historical TLC mural unveiling is located in Grant Park at the GAB’S House entertainment venue, 670 Terry Street SE in Atlanta, Georgia.
This was the first public art mural dedicated to the legendary group in their hometown of Atlanta. As well as the mural unveiling event, there was also a free VIP Experience before the festivities. Creative agency CAN I KICK IT were the hosts of an interactive art and merchandise experience for VIP registrants featuring lots of TLC personal memorabilia, art pieces, merchandise and displays of other notable hip-hop artists from the Atlanta scene.
Attendees were treated to some performances by rapper Neshanycee and a special dance performance by the D4YL Kids, choreographed by the former TLC dancer Naeemah MC, who also did a phenomenal dance off performance!
Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas finally graced the stage after being introduced by King K of the Crown ME Empire served as the event MC host. Friends and peers of TLC took some time to pay homage to the legends including Inga S Willis, Shanti Das, Ian Burke, Ryan Cameron and Mayor of Atlanta Andre Dickens.
“It’s just crazy. I’m excited to see what this looks like,” Ian Burke told The Atlanta Voice. “New York immortalizes their heroes all the time, it’s about time that Atlanta follows suit. There are a lot of people that have influenced the nation worldwide. It’s important that our heroes are immortalized in this way.”
Long-time TLC fan Allon Plummer also spoke with the publication. “I’ve been a die-hard fan since I was a child, I am currently 37 years old and they were the first people I saw on VH1 and fell in love with them,” Plummer said. “This mural is another chapter in history. They have impacted everything from safe sex to how to stand up for your beliefs.”
The talented BudBox creator De’Anthony aka BabyFaceBud presented a set of exclusive and individually personalized plaques to T-Boz, Chilli, and a 3rd plaque made for Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes was accepted by her sister, Reigndrop Lopes, and was gifted to Lisa’s best friend, Trena Smith and god daughter Jakia “Snow” Smith.
Talented artist Shawn Stewart presented an exclusive portrait of TLC on stage to T-Boz and Chilli, and vowed to create another portrait so that they don’t have to share the one he made. Another talented artist from Atlanta Jerell Gantt lent his talents to the event and commemorated the occasion with a unique set of TLC portraits. The resin portraits and prints are available to purchase HERE for a limited time.
The crowd cheered after a countdown to reveal the incredible TLC mural dedication, created by Dan Stone. The mural was based on the Seb Janiak futuristic photo shoot, which was used as the iconic front cover for their Grammy award-winning ‘FanMail‘ album in 1999.
“I was like, ‘yo, you need to go and tell Pebbles that I’m the bomb, she need to holla at me'”, T-Boz recalls. “I didn’t really think that she would do it, but Pebbles called me at home that night. It was Chilli, me and Lisa. We were calling ourselves TLC. It wasn’t really girly, but it had a lot of hip-hop elements. Lisa, she came in as a little, feisty rapper, so that gave us that hip-hop element.”
TLC-Army.com 