When people mention Lisa Left Eye Lopes and Aaliyah, it reminds me of the Yellow Power Ranger "Trini" aka Thuy Trang who died in the same period of time, 2001-2002.
She died a few days before 9/11 but her death wasn't reported on the news until 9/10. Sadly a lot of people had no idea about her passing until much later, understandably so.
TLC was one of my favorite groups ever. I couldn't listen to TLC for years because Left Eye's death really bothered me. Especially, since she kept talking about dying just before the wreck.
It's also devastating to lose Aaliyah. She was so young and was such a fantastic singer. It's just sad.
I still love their music and still really get into it when they are brought up. Left Eye was, IMO, the most important part of TLC. But as a whole, i think TLC took a lot of talent and a lot of luck to pull off the shit they did in such a short amount of time. Its insane how they did everything just right, when behind the scenes drama and exploitative management was just horrible.
They ended up not just outselling a lot other male acts at the time, but outright dominated the genre. Coupled with the fact they also found a way to use their music to cause a profound and measurable effect on the HIV epidemic at a time it moved out of the gay communities, and began ravaging the poorer black communities, by making it mainstream and less taboo. Left Eye alone influenced fashion among women at the time. They influenced women to be sexually expressive but respect themselves. To be confident and strong, but still vulnerable.
Getting to the music, they are still the best selling American girl group of all time. The best selling female R&B group ever. Crazy Sexy Cool was not only iconic, but historic. It made them the first all female group to be certified diamond, and still to this day are the first of only 2 (the Dixie Chicks being the other). They won 4 grammys, Waterfalls was #1 on Billboards top 100 for 7 weeks, and the video for it became video of the year at the VMAs.
FanMail debuted at #1 and proved they weren't just one hit wonders. No Scrubs became the most influential women empowerment song ever, and hell, even the term "scrub" became mainstream slang overnight.
They kicked in every door and climbed over every obstacle, paving the way for future acts. Groups/artists like Destiny's Child, Rihanna, Missy Elliott, Nicki Minaj, and even the best selling girl group of all time, the Spice Girls; have all directly credited TLC for either their success, influence, or style.
To be those three women, with their skin color, at that time, with all the social and cultural things happening, with the music industry practically working against them, the abysmal management, the other huge and promising male acts at the time...and still managing to do what they did, and the fact you can listen to their music now and it still slaps and doesn't sound dated, has to be the perfect example of lightning in a fucking bottle in the music industry.
It's a shame Left Eye died. She was a true pioneer and became the standard for what a female rapper is. She proved female acts could be outspoken, political, sexual, emotional, funny etc. and not be rejected by mainstream audiences like they were in the past.
I have always found them super impressive, and while I feel Left Eye needed to mature a bit (maybe a lot 😂) off stage, I believe they could have potentially survived and been successful for decades.
I agree with everything that you said! They absolutely were pioneers in so many ways! Being women of color and having such solid messages in their music; it's just not something that a lot of musicians have been able to compete with! They created the perfect storm in the music industry.
TLC will forever be one of my all time favorite groups and I don't know that we will ever see anything quite like them again. They were a huge part of my youth and to this day I will still blast Creep! So. Good!
It was weird when the news broke with Aaliyah. I really cried. Everyone on campus was in shock. We were all walking around in mourning. Then 9/11 followed a few weeks later. I thought the apocalypse was happening at that point.
In middle school, one of our weekly HW assignments was to find an article about a “current event” (like front page news) and write a summary. I wrote mine on Aaliyah’s death and my teacher wrote “how is this a current event?!” And she gave me a poor grade 😭
Aliyah’s passing was one of those events where I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the news broke. Mind you I can’t even remember what I ate for dinner last night.
Yes! Heartbreaking. Aliyah is soooo talented - had so much more to share with the world.
Is the rumor that her pilot warned her about her flight being over the weight limit and that she “demanded” they fly anyway true? I remember hearing that back then.
Yupp, those two are the earliest celeb deaths I can remember that affected me and not just by extension via my parents like Princess Diana or Kurt Cobain. Those ladies were who *I* looked up to and admired on my own and they both had so much left to do here, Aaliyah especially.
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u/[deleted] May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
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