The original concept of CrazySexyCool was simple: women are many. The title blends their personalities and is a way to subvert the public’s perception of each member: Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins is the “cool” one, Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas is the “sexy” seductress, and Lisa ” “Left Eye” Lopez himself is said to be “crazy.” She correctly believes that each of them is all of these things at the same time. It’s simple, but some of the album’s male producers initially missed the point about the self as a multi-layered structure. “They would write a crazy song for me, a sexy song for Chilli, a cool song for Tionne,” Left Eye told Vibe in 1994. “We have to explain that CrazySexyCool doesn’t just describe us as individuals. It describes all parts of every woman.”
Each member of the Atlanta R&B trio has a unique persona, but the focus is how they come together. T-Boz has a raspy, matter-of-fact voice, and her jazzy vocal style is tone-centric, strutting in power and clarity. Chilli is the closest thing to traditional R&B, and their songs are filled with the sexiness of a quiet storm. Left Eye is a rebellious poet who raps, sings, and comes up with many musical and visual concepts.
Left Eye suggested that the group pin condoms to their clothes and tape them to their glasses to promote safe sex, a laudable fashion statement that also defines their freewheeling creed as artists . Like their predecessors Salt-N-Pepa, none of TLC’s messages in their songs, visuals, or costumes seem scripted or telegraphed. Unlike a typical girl group, no one member has a higher status than another. Their personal styles blend seamlessly as they play to each other’s strengths, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Their 1992 debut album Oooooooohhh… on TLC Tip portrays the trio as sexual, independent twenty-something women who allow themselves to be silly, inappropriate, and even a little chaotic on their own terms . The album’s massive success and triple-platinum sales established TLC as a role model for young listeners and pop industry anarchists, promoting the basic truth that women have basic physical needs. In the video for “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg,” they fire water cannons and sing about sexual autonomy while wearing bright, baggy jumpsuits and quirky Digital Underground-style puffy hats for the unrepressed. Sexual expression provides justification.
“CrazySexyCool” is slicker and more scandalous, smoothing out TLC’s approach without losing the tongue-in-cheek wit of the debut. Its songs emphasize not only sex but all forms of pleasure. It’s a liberating, multi-faceted view that shows that sexiness doesn’t have to be vulgar or explicit: it can come through in the movement of a snake-print saxophone, or the way T-Boz whispers, “Yeah, it’s me again “The beginning of “squirming” is like foreplay.
