TLC’s Chilli Passed Over For Magazine Cover as Black Artist

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On April 4, Variety hosted its 2023 Power of Women Luncheon in New York City and honored a handful of trailblazing ladies throughout the leisure business, together with a bunch of ’90s music legends: TLC. On Tuesday, Variety introduced the group with the legacy award. Accepting the award on TLC’s behalf, four-time Grammy winner Chilli took a second to replicate on the group’s biggest accomplishments and most notable struggles as ladies of coloration within the recording business.

“When you are a woman of color, it’s real hard — it’s a huge struggle,” Chilli stated of her 32 years within the music business, based on Variety. Even on the peak of TLC’s fame in 1999, following the discharge of their chart-topping hit “No Scrubs,” Chilli recalled being missed for career-changing alternatives that have been, as an alternative, afforded to non-Black artists.

“I’ll always remember when ‘No Scrubs’ came out and it was actually our first number one,” she stated. “I always wanted to be on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine . . . we didn’t get the cover. I won’t say who [got the cover], it’s OK because he deserved it too, but we also did. The message was, ‘the last time we had someone Black on the cover, it didn’t really sell well.'”

While these unfounded cases of rejection have been painful and disheartening, Chilli stated the group by no means misplaced hope. “I have to say that just because you hear many ‘nos’ does not mean that you don’t have the talent because you do — we never stopped believing in ourselves and each other.”

Chilli continued her speech by thanking fellow bandmate T-Boz; she additionally praised longtime supervisor Bill Diggins for his unwavering help, particularly following the lack of bandmate Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, who died in a automotive crash in 2002. “Bill Diggins believed in us when we were on top of the world,” she stated. “And when everything happened — losing our sister — and no one believing in us anymore, thinking that it was over . . . he never felt like that.”