14 DAY TRIAL // TLC is back in the recording studio and if you’re one of the millions of fans the group had back in its heyday, when Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes was still alive, you’ll probably be happy to learn that you can actually do something to make this album come out and your way quicker.
T-Boz and Chilli, the two remaining members of TLC, have launched a Kickstarter campaign meant to help them secure funds for the album. They say they’ve already laid down some tracks, but they can’t put them out until they have a minimum of $150,000 (€129,478) in cash.
No restrictions, just music
That amount is just the tip of the iceberg, they explain on the page of the Kickstarter campaign: this money will go towards a “writing session in the studio with a producer and engineer.” Whatever money will be raised beyond that will go to “booking music producers, writing sessions, mixing sessions, recording sessions and SO much more.”
The duo says that they are working hard to get everyone from the old team back, which is perhaps the best guarantee that they will deliver the same kind of high-quality music as before. Minus Left Eye, of course.
T-Boz and Chilli don’t explain why they don’t just fund the album out of their own pocket, but that’s probably because they can’t afford it: TLC is known as one of the best-selling groups of all time (not just female), but at the height of their fame, they filed for bankruptcy because of bad management and an even worse contract with the record label, which left them working for peanuts.
That won’t happen if they get the money for this album.
“While major labels offer artists multimillion dollar recording and marketing budgets, they don’t often give artists complete control of their own music. It is ESSENTIAL that we create our final album completely on our own terms, without any restrictions, with YOU,” they write on the website.
An album for the fans
According to the two performers, there will be no more TLC music after this, so they’re working on making it a huge treat: they want this final TLC album to be a present to the fans, to those millions of supporters who got them through showbiz and helped them stay active in the industry for 2 decades.
In return for their pledges, fans will receive all kinds of goodies, from a handwritten list of T-Boz and Chilli’s 15 favorite tracks, to the possibility to choose which songs they should remix and include on the album, to a movie date with either (but only in LA) and even a slumber party with T-Boz or Chilli, depending on who’s your favorite, and the chance to own an iconic outfit they wore.
As of the time of writing, the campaign has raised a little over $54,000 (€46,612), so the journey is only one third complete.