TLC Talks Cardi B’s Homage and Keeping Left Eye’s Legacy Alive

TLC appeared on Apple’s Beats 1, where T-Boz and Chilli talked about the group’s legacy on the anniversary of Left Eye’s passing and Cardi B paying homage to them in her music and her most recent Coachella performance.

T-Boz and Chilli spoke about Left Eye’s legacy and how they keep her alive on the 16th anniversary of her death. Left Eye, born Lisa Lopes, died on April 25, 2002, in a car accident in Honduras.  The pair had this to share about her legacy:

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.  

Cardi B has paid homage to the girl group on several occasions. The Bronx rapper referenced TLC and Left Eye on her debut album, Invasion of Privacy.  On “Be Careful,” Cardi raps: “I wanna get married, like the Currys, Steph and Ayesha shit / But we more like Belly, Tommy and Keisha shit /Gave you TLC, you wanna creep and shit.”

Then on the track “Thru the Phone”, she references Left Eye burning down her former lover Andre Rison’s home during a dispute.  “I might just cut all the tongues out your sneakers / Smash your TV from Best Buy / You gon’ turn me into Left Eye,” Cardi spits.

Speaking about how frequently Cardi shows them love, the group had this to say: “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  . . . 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.”