Lisa Nicole Lopes, better known by her stage name Left Eye, was an American rapper, dancer,
musician, and songwriter.
She achieved fame as a member of the R&B girl group TLC.
Lopes contributed her self-written raps to many of TLC's hit singles, including "Ain't
2 Proud 2 Beg", "What About Your Friends", "Hat 2 da Back", "No Scrubs", "Waterfalls",
"Girl Talk".
Lopes won four Grammy Awards for her work with TLC.
On April 25, 2002, Lopes was killed in an automobile accident in La Ceiba, Honduras.
She was driving the vehicle, when she swerved off the road to avoid hitting another vehicle.
She was thrown from her own vehicle and later died from her injuries.
The last days of her life were filmed from March 30, 2002 until her death on April 25,
2002, including the accident that took her life.
The footage was made into a documentary called The Last Days of Left Eye.
It aired on VH1's rock docs on May 19, 2007, eight days prior to Lopes' 36th birthday.
Early life Lisa Lopes was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
to Wanda, a seamstress, and Ronald Lopes, an Army staff sergeant.
She has two younger siblings, Ronald and Raina.
Her father has been described by music journalist and academic Jacqueline Springer, as an "oppressively"
strict and demanding disciplinarian.
But one of the few interests that he and Lopes shared was alcohol.
Lopes' parents separated when she was still at school and for the later years of her childhood,
she was raised by her paternal grandmother.
Career TLC
At the age of 19, having heard of an open casting call for a new girl group through
her boyfriend at the time, Lopes moved to Atlanta to audition.
TLC started off as a female trio called 2nd Nature.
The group was renamed TLC – derived from the first initials of its then three members
– Tionne, Lisa and Crystal.
Things did not work out with Crystal Jones, and TLC's manager Perri "Pebbles" Reid brought
in Damian Dame backup dancer Rozonda Thomas as a third member of the group.
To keep the "initial" theme of the band's name, Rozonda needed a name starting with
C, and so became Chilli—a name chosen by Lopes.
Band mate Tionne Watkins became T-Boz which was derived from the first letter of her first
name and "Boz," which is slang for "boss".
Lopes was renamed "Left Eye", after a compliment from a man who once told her he was very attracted
to her because of her left eye.
Lopes emphasized her nickname by wearing a pair of glasses with the left lens covered
with a condom, in keeping with the group's promotion of safe sex, wearing a black stripe
under her left eye and, eventually getting her left eyebrow pierced.
The group arrived on the music scene in 1992 with the album Ooooooohhh...
On the TLC Tip.
With four singles, it sold six million copies worldwide; TLC became a household name.
1994 saw the release of CrazySexyCool, which sold over 23 million copies worldwide and
cemented TLC as one of the biggest female groups of all time.
TLC's third album, FanMail, was released in 1999 and sold over 14 million copies worldwide.
Its title was a tribute to TLC's loyal fans and the sleeve contained the names of hundreds
of them as a "thank you" to supporters.
During the recording of FanMail, a public conflict began amongst the members of the
group.
Lopes sent a message to Vibe magazine saying, "I've graduated from this era.
I cannot stand 100 percent behind this TLC project and the music that is supposed to
represent me."
In response to Lopes' comments, Watkins and Thomas stated to Entertainment Weekly that
Lopes "doesn't respect the whole group" and "Left Eye is only concerned with Left Eye".
In turn, Lopes sent a reply through Entertainment Weekly issuing a "challenge" to Watkins and
Thomas to release solo albums and let the public decide who was the "greatest" member
of TLC: T-Boz and Chilli declined to take up the "challenge,"
though Lopes always maintained it was a great idea.
Things were heated between the ladies for some time, with Thomas speaking out against
Lopes, calling her antics "selfish", "evil", and "heartless."
TLC then addressed these fights by saying that they are very much like sisters that
have their disagreements every now and then as Lisa stated, "It's deeper than a working
relationship.
We have feelings for each other, which is why we get so mad at each other.
I usually say that you cannot hate someone unless you love them.
So, we love each other.
That's the problem."
Solo career After FanMail Lopes began to expand her solo
career.
She became a featured rapper on several singles, including former Spice Girl Melanie C's "Never
Be the Same Again", which topped the charts in thirty five countries, including the United
Kingdom.
She was also featured on the first single from Donell Jones' second album, "U Know What's
Up", and she sang a verse in "Space Cowboy" with 'N Sync on their 2000 album, No Strings
Attached.
In September 2000, she co-hosted the MOBO Awards in the UK alongside Trevor Nelson,
where she also performed "U Know What's Up" with Donnell Jones.
Lopes also collaborated on "Gimme Some" by Toni Braxton from her 2000 album The Heat.
In 2001, she appeared in two commercials for Gap Inc.. rappers, and rock bands competed
against each other and were judged.
The show's winner, which ended up being a male-female rap duo, was promised a record
deal and funding to produce a music video, which would then enter MTV's heavy rotation.
A then-unknown Anastacia finished in third place, but ended up securing a record deal
after Lopes and the show's three judges were impressed by her performance.
About nine months before her death, Lopes appeared on the singers' edition of Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire along with Joey McIntyre, Tyrese, Nick Lachey, and Lee Ann Womack.
She dropped from a $125,000 question and won $32,000 for charity.
A year later, in 2002, the episode of her drop was shown and was dedicated to her.
Lopes created "Left Eye Productions" to discover new talent.
She helped the R&B trio Blaque secure a record deal with Columbia Records.
Their self-titled debut album was executive-produced by Lopes, who also made a cameo appearance
on the album and in their music video "I Do".
Lopes was also developing another new band called Ejypt.
They worked on her second album under her new nickname, N.I.N.A, meaning New Identity
Not Applicable.
Supernova Lopes spent much of her free time after the
conclusion of TLC's first headlining tour supporting Fanmail recording her debut solo
album, Supernova.
It includes a song titled "A New Star is Born", which is dedicated to her late father.
She told MTV News: Other tracks covered personal issues, including
her relationship with NFL football player Andre Rison.
In 1994, Lopes infamously burned down Rison's Atlanta mansion, resulting in the loss of
all his possessions.
Among the album's twelve tracks was also a posthumous duet with Tupac Shakur that was
assembled from the large cache of unreleased recordings done prior to his murder in 1996.
Initially scheduled for release on a date to coincide with the tenth anniversary of
her father's death, Arista Records decided to delay, then cancel the American release.
The album was eventually released in August 2001 in various foreign territories.
N.I.N.A.
After numerous talks with Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight, Lopes severed her solo deal
with Arista and signed with Knight's Tha Row Records, intending to record a second solo
album under the pseudonym "N.I.N.A.".
She was recording with David Bowie for the project, who she was also trying to get involved
with the fourth TLC album.
The project was also to include several songs recorded by and with Ray J along with close
friend Missy Elliott.
The album was never released after Lopes' death in April 2002.
In 2011, the album was released as a download-only album featuring artists from Tha Row Records.
The unreleased song, "Left Pimpin", was sampled for the song "Quickie", which is featured
on TLC's fourth album, 3D.
Eye Legacy, Forever...
The EP and "Fantasies" In 2008, Lopes' family decided to work with
producers at Surefire Music Group to create a posthumous album in her honor, Eye Legacy.
Originally set to be released October 28, 2008, the release date was pushed back to
November 11, then to January 27, 2009.
The song "Crank It", which features Lopes' sister Reigndrop, was released as a promotional
single.
The first official single from the album, "Let's Just Do It", was released on January
13, 2009 and features Missy Elliott and TLC.
The second official single, "Block Party", features Lil Mama and Clyde McKnight.
The album largely consists of reworked versions of tracks from the Supernova album.
In November 2009, Forever...
The EP was released which contained international bonus tracks not used on the Eye Legacy album.
The EP was only available to download.
An unreleased track featuring Lopes was uploaded to SoundCloud on the eve of the 10-year anniversary
of her death by Block Starz Music.
A portion of the proceeds from the song "Fantasies", which features rapper Bootleg of The Dayton
Family, will go to the Lisa Lopes Foundation.
Personal life Lopes was often vocal about her personal life
and difficult past.
She readily admitted that she had come from an abusive, alcoholic background and struggled
with alcohol problems herself.
These problems became headline news in 1994, when she set fire to Andre Rison's tennis
shoes in a bathtub, which ultimately spread to the mansion they shared, destroying it.
Lopes claimed that Rison had beaten her after a night out, and she set fire to his shoes
to get back at him.
However, she said burning down the house was an accident.
Lopes later revealed that she did not have a lot of freedom within the relationship and
was abused mentally and physically, having released all her frustrations on the night
of the fire.
Lopes, who was sentenced to five years probation and therapy at a halfway house, was never
able to shake the incident from her reputation.
Her relationship with Rison continued to make headlines, with rumors of an imminent wedding,
later debunked by People magazine.
Lopes revealed on The Last Days of Left Eye documentary that her meeting with a struggling
mother in rehab left a big impression on her.
She subsequently adopted the woman's 8-year-old daughter.
Ten years previously, she had adopted a 12-year-old boy.
Lopes had several large tattoos.
Most prominent was a large eagle on her left arm, which she said represented freedom.
Later, she added the number "80" around the eagle, which was Rison's NFL number while
in Atlanta.
She also had a tattoo of a moon with a face on her foot in reference to Rison's nickname,
Bad Moon.
On her upper right arm was a large tattoo of the name Parron, for her late step brother
who died in a boating accident, arching over a large tattoo of a pierced heart.
Her smallest tattoo was on her left ear and consisted of an arrow pointing to her left
over the symbol of an eye, a reference to her nickname.
Roughly two weeks before her own death, Lopes was involved in a traffic accident that resulted
in the death of a ten-year-old Honduran boy.
As reported in Philadelphia Weekly, "It is commonplace for people to walk the roads that
wind through Honduras, and it's often difficult to see pedestrians."
The boy, Bayron Isaul Fuentes Lopez, was following behind his brothers and sisters when he stepped
off the median strip and was struck by the van driven by Lopes' personal assistant.
Lopes' party stopped and loaded the boy into the car, and the Philadelphia Weekly goes
on to explain that "Lisa cradled the dying boy's bleeding head in her arms" while "Someone
gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as they rushed him to a nearby hospital."
Lopez died the next day and Lopes paid approximately US$3,700 for his medical expenses and funeral,
and later compensated the family around US$925 for their loss, although it was apparently
agreed upon by the authorities and the boy's family that his death was an "unforeseeable
tragedy", and no blame was placed on Lopes or the driver of the van.
In the documentary The Last Days of Left Eye, Lopes is shown in a local funeral home choosing
a casket for the child.
Earlier in the documentary, Lopes mentioned that she felt the presence of a "spirit" following
her, and was struck by the fact that the child killed in the accident shared her last name,
even thinking that the spirit may have made a mistake by taking his life instead of hers.
Charity Lopes started the Lisa Lopes Foundation, a
charitable group dedicated to providing neglected and abandoned youth with the resources necessary
to increase their quality of life.
Her spiritual motto is the one that she used for her foundation: "Energy never dies...It
just transforms."
Her foundation went into various underdeveloped villages and gave away brand new clothes to
needy children and their families.
In 2012, the Foundation began hosting an annual music festival, known as "Left Eye Music Fest",
in Decatur, Georgia.
Death On April 25, 2002, in La Ceiba, Honduras,
while driving a rented Mitsubishi Montero Sport around a bend in the road, Lopes swerved
to the right slightly then again to the left as she tried to avoid a collision with another
vehicle that was in her lane ahead of her.
The vehicle rolled several times after hitting two trees, throwing Lopes and three others
out of the windows.
She died of neck injuries and severe head trauma, and was the only person fatally injured
in the accident.
Raina Lopes, in the front passenger seat, was videotaping at the time, so the last seconds
leading up to the swerve that resulted in the fatal accident were recorded on video.
In the video, Lisa appears not to be wearing a seatbelt.
Her funeral was held at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia on May
2, 2002.
Thousands of people attended her funeral.
Engraved upon her casket were the lyrics to her portion of "Waterfalls": "Dreams are hopeless
aspirations, in hopes of coming true, believe in yourself, the rest is up to me and you."
Lopes was buried at Hillandale Memorial Gardens, in Lithonia, Georgia.
In a statement to MTV, producer Jermaine Dupri remembered Lopes:
She was determined to be something in life.
She was a true Hip-Hop star.
She cared about some press.
She was the star out of the group.
She was the one who would curse on TV.
She had the tattoos.
You could not expect the expected.
When you see Lisa, you could expect something from her.
That is the gift she carried.
Controversy over leaked autopsy photos led to a protest by NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt,
Jr.
In response, Earnhardt, Jr. and his DEI teammates Michael Waltrip and Steve Park painted a single
black stripe next to the left headlight decals of their Chevrolet Monte Carlos for the Pontiac
Excitement 400 at Richmond International Raceway to protest about the display of her autopsy
photos.
A similar controversy had befallen Earnhardt, Jr. himself after his father's death in the
Daytona 500 a year earlier.
A documentary showing the final 27 days of Lopes' life, titled The Last Days of Left
Eye, premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival in April 2007, for an audience that included
many of Lopes' contemporaries, including Monica, Ronnie DeVoe, 112, Big Boi, India.Arie, and
CeeLo Green.
VH1 and VH1 Soul broadcast the documentary on May 19, 2007.
Much of the footage was shot with a hand-held camera, often in the form of diary entries
filmed by Lopes while on a 30-day spiritual retreat in Honduras with family and members
of the R&B group Egypt.
In these entries, she reflected on her personal life and career.
A calmer side of her personality was on display, showing interests in numerology and yoga.
She was in the process of setting up an educational center for Honduran children on 80 acres of
land she owned.
Legacy Lopes is remembered for adding a unique rap
sensibility to TLC's music as well as being relatively creative towards the group's look
and sound.
She was often thought of as "crazy" and was known for being one of the most outspoken
and controversial female rap artist of that time.
Lopes' colorful but yet troublesome life and career was often heavily publicized and perhaps
was a contributing factor to TLC's mega-success with the CrazySexyCool and FanMail LPs.
She heavily embraced change throughout her career & one could sense the elevation within
Lopes' lyrics over the course of her career as she went from from having a squeaky-voiced,
silly and boisterous sound to having a more in-depth and definite tone within her raps.
She is still recognized today as both being a member of one of the most successful, multi-platinum
selling girl groups of all time as well as a multi-talented female rapper who always
'spoke from the heart and was never afraid to be herself'.
UNI Studios In 1996, Lopes created the UNI Studios for
the purpose of recording solo projects.
Lopes' family opened the studio to the public.
So far, her brother Ronald Lopes is the general manager of the studio.
Lopes had a dream of making new artists able to record music at a low price, in a high-end
studio at her house.
Lisa's family continues to operate it and fill it with new equipment.
Discography
Studio albums 2001: Supernova
Compilations 2009: Eye Legacy
Extended plays 2009: Forever...
The EP 2013: Reigndrops in My LeftEye
Filmography References
External links Lisa Lopes Foundation
Lisa Lopes at the Internet Movie Database Lisa Lopes on Myspace
Lisa Lopes at Find a Grave