Besides rapping and singing backing vocals on TLC recordings, Lopes was the creative force behind the group, receiving more co-writing credits than the other members.
46 Facts About Lisa Lopes
2.
Lisa Lopes designed some of their outfits and the stage for 'Fan Mail Tour' and contributed to the group's image, album titles, artworks, and music videos.
3.
Lisa Lopes produced another girl group, Blaque, who scored a platinum album and two US top 10 hits.
4.
Lisa Lopes remains the only member of TLC to have released a solo album.
5.
Lisa Lopes was born in 1971 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Wanda, a seamstress, and Ronald Lisa Lopes Sr.
6.
Lisa Lopes said her father was "very strict, very domineering" and that he treated the family like they were in "boot camp".
7.
Lisa Lopes was a "talented musician" who played the harmonica, clarinet, piano, and saxophone.
8.
Lisa Lopes' parents separated when she was still in school, and her paternal grandmother raised her during the later years of her childhood.
9.
Lisa Lopes began playing with a toy piano at five years old, and later composed her own songs.
10.
In late 1990, Lisa Lopes moved to Atlanta to dance in an artist's music video.
11.
Lisa Lopes was renamed "LeftEye" after a compliment from her friend, speculated to be New Edition member Michael Bivins, who once told her he was attracted to her because of her left eye, which was more slanted than her right eye.
12.
Shortly afterwards, Lisa Lopes began dating Atlanta Falcons football player Andre Rison, and the two soon moved in together in Rison's upscale double-story home.
13.
Lisa Lopes had a battle with alcohol at the time; having started drinking at the age of fifteen.
14.
Lisa Lopes was arrested and indicted on charges of first-degree arson; she was sentenced to five years of probation and a $10,000 fine.
15.
Later in 1995, Lisa Lopes recorded a well-received verse to the rap version of "Freedom" of the soundtrack from the Black Panther-based docudrama Panther with fellow female hip hop artists such as Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Patra, Yo-Yo, Salt 'n' Pepa and Meshell Ndegeocello.
16.
In 1997, Lisa Lopes was featured on the remix to Lil' Kim's "Not Tonight", alongside Missy Elliott, Angie Martinez and Da Brat.
17.
Watkins and Thomas didn't get the strategy behind the 'The Challenge' and declined to take up the offer, though Lisa Lopes always maintained it was a great idea.
18.
In 1998, Lisa Lopes hosted the short-lived MTV series The Cut, in which a list of aspiring pop stars, rappers, and rock bands competed against each other in front of judges.
19.
Lisa Lopes was developing and promoting another new band called Egypt.
20.
In 2000, Lisa Lopes became a featured rapper on several singles, including Spice Girl Melanie C's "Never Be the Same Again", which topped the charts in 35 countries, including the United Kingdom.
21.
Lisa Lopes was featured on "U Know What's Up", the first single from Donell Jones' second album, Where I Wanna Be, and she rapped a verse in "Space Cowboy" with NSYNC on their 2000 album, No Strings Attached.
22.
On October 4,2000, Lisa Lopes co-hosted the UK's MOBO Awards with Trevor Nelson, where she performed "U Know What's Up" with Jones.
23.
Lisa Lopes collaborated on "Gimme Some" by Toni Braxton for her 2000 album The Heat.
24.
In July 2001, Lisa Lopes appeared on the singers' edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire along with Joey McIntyre, Tyrese, Nick Lachey, and Lee Ann Womack.
25.
Lisa Lopes dropped the $125,000 question and won $32,000 for her charity.
26.
In 2008, Lisa Lopes' family opened UNI Studios, which she had created for the purpose of recording solo projects, to the public.
27.
Lisa Lopes had a dream of making new artists able to record music at a low cost, in a high-end studio at her house.
28.
Lisa Lopes's family continues to operate it and fill it with new equipment.
29.
Lisa Lopes spent much of her free time after the conclusion of TLC's first headlining tour, the FanMail Tour, recording her debut solo album, Supernova.
30.
Lisa Lopes had discussions about recording with David Bowie for the project, whom she was trying to get involved with the fourth TLC album.
31.
In 2008, Lisa Lopes' family decided to work with producers at Surefire Music Group to create a posthumous album in her honor, Eye Legacy.
32.
In 2012, on the eve of the tenth anniversary of her death, "Fantasies", an unreleased track by Bootleg featuring Lisa Lopes, was uploaded to SoundCloud.
33.
Lisa Lopes was often vocal about her personal life and difficult past.
34.
Lisa Lopes came from an abusive, alcoholic background and struggled with alcoholism herself.
35.
Lisa Lopes claimed that Rison had beaten her after a night out, and she set fire to his shoes to get back at him but that burning down the house was an accident.
36.
Lisa Lopes later revealed that she did not have a lot of freedom within the relationship and that Rison abused her emotionally and physically; she said that she released her frustrations about the relationship on the night of the fire.
37.
Lisa Lopes was sentenced to five years' probation and therapy at a halfway house, and was unable to shake the incident from her reputation.
38.
Lisa 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.
39.
Lisa Lopes had adopted a 12-year-old boy ten years prior.
40.
Lisa Lopes had a tattoo of a moon with a face on her foot in reference to Rison's nickname, "Bad Moon"; Lopes later added the words "Love U 2" in the musical notes on her foot for Tupac Shakur.
41.
Lisa Lopes struggled with self-harm and even carved the words "hate" and "love" into her arm with a razor.
42.
In September 2000, Lisa Lopes was reported missing after failing to attend a family gathering and a major press conference in Las Vegas.
43.
Roughly two weeks before her own death, Lisa Lopes was a passenger in a traffic accident that resulted in the death of a 10-year-old Honduran boy.
44.
Lisa Lopes paid approximately $3,700 for his medical expenses and funeral, and she gave the family around $925 for any extra costs, 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 the driver of the van or Lisa Lopes.
45.
Lisa Lopes' funeral was held at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, on May 2,2002.
46.
Lisa Lopes was in the process of setting up two educational centers for Honduran children.