The Full Story of "It's Alright"
Way back in 2002, something weird happened in the world of TLC. DJ Bigger’s Urban Essentials released a rarity from the TLC Song Vaults on their European Solar Radio station that was never heard before, called "It's Alright". This was during the recording sessions for TLC's fourth album, '3D', before Lisa died.
According to CyberTLC World, the station released this quote here, stating the song, and it's release, started breaking records alone on their station as a highly requested song in Europe:
“We’ve broke the history of Solar Radio e-mails for one track. We’ve been BLITZED, I mean BLITZED by e-mails. We played a track by TLC, we’ve been playing it for 4 out of the last 5 weeks on the show. We have been absolutely deluged by e-mails to play the track again. World exclusive style. This is brand new from TLC. It is a track featuring all 3 members. Rumors in America at the moment suggests that maybe the album’s never gonna come, or maybe Left Eye might be leaving the group. These are all different rumors flying around America right now. But this is a track with all 3 of them together, it’s brand new. It’s called “It’s Alright” and it’s a world exclusive on Urban Essentials.”
Mind you, at this point, TLC hasn't released a song to radio since "Dear Lie" in 1999. "Shout" was supposed to be released as the fourth single from the album in either 1999/2000. However, it's release was cancelled. So TLC fans haven't heard anything new that's strictly TLC in 3 years until that very moment, and boy were they wearing that moment to shreds in Europe alone! The funny thing was, after all that buzz, no one heard anything from TLC's camp about the song, it being released, and what's next as a single. No one even uploaded it online already. People were so caught up on it's release, and hearing it on radio, only one person recorded it after it being requested again, and brought it to CyberTLC World for fans outside of Europe can hear the song as well.
Fans believed that this was going to be the first single for the '3D' album.... The look on their faces when, even after Lisa died, how TLC went on as if the song never existed. Instead of "It's Alright", we got "Girl Talk" as the first single, and when the album dropped, the song was no where near to be found. While some fans paid it no/no more mind, it still had some fans bothered that how such an amazing song, that was gaining so much buzz overseas for the girls, get ignored heavy like it's anticipation. So, of course, fans waited for the chance to ask the girls about the song, more directly, and what happened with it.
The first time it was brought to the table, CyberTLC World had interviewed Chilli back in 2006/2008. When he asked her, she literally did not know what he was talking about. Even after playing the song, with this being a Chilli lead, for Chilli, Chilli states that it was not her, and must have been a girl group Left Eye was working with with a producer from the Green Eyed Bandits.... At least she had the producer right. It confused the hell out of some fans until CyberTLC World interviewed TLC, and asked her about the song. T-Boz said that it is a TLC song, that they actually recorded it during the 'FanMail' era for the 'FanMail' album, but couldn't remember anything else about the song.
Just when you thought no further details would surface on the song, a cute miracle happened. After fans started uploading leftover material from their favorite artists to YouTube, some of the Producers of those songs (some upset about not being credited or not being credited properly) started going into comment sections, dropping tidbits about the songs their commenting under, and there, fans (including myself - Jordan), had noticed the producer of the song "It's Alright" dropping MAD info on the song that some of us had to get CyberTLC World involved! CyberTLC World communicated with Dwight “Lil’ Skrapp” Reynolds of the GreenEyed Bandits, and Dwight dropped even more info, summering everything he said up with more backstory. Not only was this song going to be the first single for an album, but the first single for the 'FanMail' album. Read more below:
"“I moved to Atlanta in 97 and lived with Left-Eye and Andre` Rison (fellow Flintstone). Lisa heard a song called “#1 Fine Thang” produced by my group at the time Co-P and The GreenEyed Bandits. We recorded that and another song I wrote and produced called “It’s Alright”.
The name of it is “It’s Alright”, officially. It was slated to be the 1st single and business decisions not made in the interest of some changed that. Not sure how it leaked. The leak version isn’t great quality and we had better quality mixes than that. Recorded another song with all the girls and 3 more with Lisa.
So the story goes like this, I was practically homeless living in a friend’s sunroom producing and giving my music to people when Tab, one of Lisa’s close friends, got a hold of some of my groups music. she hit me back and told me Lisa had heard something she liked and that L.A. was going to set up studio time to cut the record. I didn’t write/produce this particular record so i told the group member and he flew down. (Lisa knew all of us cuz we were from Flint, Andre Rison’s hometown, & 2 of us had been living with Her and Andre when we first got to Atlanta, Post the accident with the fire) So he flew down, & the session wasn’t going too great so i left and went home and created “It’s Alright”. Took me all of 2 hours to create! Brought it back before the session was over and Lisa was like “This is a smash, we gotta do it, etc….” So the next day we cut the record and finished the main parts. Tionne wasn’t there long. just long enough to do her parts. Chilli, Lisa, and Debra were there for the whole ride. the following day Lisa was excited and said L.A. loves the song and would be stopping by. He came by that night when we were putting the finishing touches on the record, Called Babyface & Tionne (she was under the weather) on the 3 way and seemed like it was all a go! Was gonna b the lead single before “No Scrubs.” Lisa was fighting for this record 2 b the single. But that got me a Publishing deal with Sony.
The other song was called “#1 Fine Thang.” the records we recorded with Lisa for her solo project was “Bounce”, “Cherry, Cherry”, “Lets Just Do It”. The masters exist. Arista/Sony Vaults. We have the tracks. some with vocals. We have all the originals we did with Lisa [recorded at] Doppler Studios, Atlanta. My bro has a copy of all of those songs. I’d have to listen to which versions he has.”
There's 2 versions online - a radio edit with a very old TLC introduction used to help promote the song, and a version that's a little more clear with less background vocals and different ad-lips by Chilli. TLC Army released the Radio Version without the introduction, stating the Radio Host DJ Biggers found his cut of the track he played and provided it to him which can be heard on YouTube.