Left Eye and Janet Jackson
Even though Left Eye is mainly known for her rapping skills, Janet still played an influencing roll in her career! Lisa learned some of the choreographer from the 'Control' & ''Rhythm Nation 1814' eras and did them during auditions when she was trying to make it big in the industry. After entering TLC, Lisa immediately started paying tribute to Janet by wearing the key earring Janet was mainly known for wearing. You can see her wearing it in clips such as TLC's debut music video for "Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg'. 2 years later, TLC was featured on the same project as Janet for the 'Poetic Justice' movie soundtrack ("Get it Up" and "Again") in 1993 after Lisa met 2Pac... Imagine the awkwardness of seeing your idol making out with a man you're madly in-love with in a smash movie and finding people actually trying to get THEM together. 😨😷 Good thing Lisa wasn't salty about it... ✊✊✊
Anyways, when Janet first noticed the girls she immediately loved them! She was entering the 'janet.' era at that time so imagine to Lisa's surprise that TLC would be invited to her next album release party for 'The Velvet Rope' in 1998! 🙌 Before that however, F. Gary Gray (director of TLC's "Waterfalls" music video) stated that the "Waterfalls" video was so moving and inspirational both Janet AND Michael Jackson called him separately trying to work on one of their next projects with him. He didn't clarify if it was for the "Scream" music video that later inspired TLC's music video for "No Scrubs" (both directed by Hype Williams as well as Lisa's debut solo music video "The Block Party" which became her last music video). There's even a song on the 'FanMail' album called "I'm Good at Being Bad" that Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis (some of Janet's secret weapons) both produced. They thought it would be a good idea to sample the flow from another song they did with Janet called "What About" from 'The Velvet Rope' album.
Even though there hasn't been a photo or video that surfaced of them together yet nor have they ever really worked together, but it's clear that the admiration and respect was still there that they had for each other. Janet was even one of the 10,000 people who attended Lisa's funeral. The Lopes Family started The Lisa Lopes Foundation. Yearly they would give an artist the 'Lisa Lopes Foundation Award'. Not only was Janet the last Artist to receive it, but was the first Woman and African American Woman to receive it. Janet couldn't make it to the event, but a video was uploaded with her in it saying "Thank You!" online to The Lopes Family for honoring her with such a meaningful award for all the fans to see as well and may have even talked positively about Lisa a little bit. The video was taken down however sometime after for currently unknown reasons and has not resurfaced yet.
We love you Ms. Janet and can't wait to see you at the 'State of the World Tour' coming up this year! 💜