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The unique idea for CrazySexyCool was easy: Ladies include multitudes. The title, an amalgamation of their personalities, was a technique to subvert the general public’s notion of every member: Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins because the “cool” one, Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas because the “horny” seducer, and Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes herself supposedly “loopy.” She figured, rightfully, that every of them was all of these issues directly. Easy sufficient—and but a few of the album’s male producers initially missed the purpose concerning the self as a many-layered assemble. “They’d do a loopy track for me, a horny track for Chilli, and a cool track for Tionne,” Left Eye instructed Vibe in 1994. “We needed to clarify that CrazySexyCool doesn’t simply describe us individually. It describes all of the elements of each lady.”
Every member of the Atlanta R&B trio had a definite function, however the level was how all of them got here collectively. T-Boz was raspy and matter-of-fact, her jazz-like vocal fashion centering tone and swagger over energy and readability. Chilli was the closest to conventional R&B, imbuing their songs with quiet-storm sultriness. Left Eye was the rebellious poet who rapped, sang, and got here up with a lot of their musical and visible ideas.
It was Left Eye who prompt the group pin condoms to their clothes and tape them over her personal eyeglasses to advertise protected intercourse, a laudable style assertion that got here to outline their anything-goes credo as artists. As with their predecessors Salt-N-Pepa, none of TLC’s messaging of their songs, visuals, or outfits appeared scripted or telegraphed. Not like within the typical lady group, nobody member was ever elevated over one other. Their particular person types merged seamlessly as a result of they performed off one another’s strengths, making the entire larger than the sum of its elements.
Their 1992 debut album, Ooooooohhh… on the TLC Tip, introduced the trio as sexual and impartial twentysomething ladies who allowed themselves to be goofy, improper, and somewhat bit messy on their very own phrases. The vital success and triple-platinum gross sales of that album positioned TLC as function fashions for youthful listeners and pop trade anarchists who pushed the elemental reality that girls have primary bodily wants. Within the video for “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg,” they fired water weapons and sang about sexual autonomy whereas sporting vibrant, dishevelled jumpsuits and kooky Digital Underground-style puffy hats, making the case for sexual expression with out suppression.
CrazySexyCool was slicker and extra scandalous, smoothing out TLC’s method with out dropping the tongue-in-cheek wit of the debut. Its songs emphasize not simply intercourse however pleasure in all its many varieties. It’s a liberating, multifaceted view that means horny doesn’t should be raunchy or specific alone: It may present itself within the motion of a serpentine sax, or the way in which T-Boz whispers, merely, “Sure, it’s me once more” initially of “Creep” prefer it’s foreplay.
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