Shah Wonders: "Waterfalls", Eyenetics, and The Left Eye Mural!
Get to know more of how the artist known as Shah Wonders met Left Eye, became friends, met TLC, and got to create some amazing work for them. According to TLC Army, he is responsible for the artwork used for promotion of the 'CrazySexyCool World Tour', the "Waterfalls" single cover, some cartoons used for 'FanMail' when it was called 'Fantasy', and the co-responsible for the artwork made for Eyenetics.net. Cyber TLC World grabbed him that same month of November 2016 for an exclusive interview:
"From my understanding, you first came into the TLC story after you met Left Eye. Can you tell us how that happened and how she brought you in to the TLC camp?"
Wow! This a wild story I haven’t told in many moons. Well, the long and short of it is that I was in school scrambling to make some money and then one day my roommate asked me to fill a position to clean these office buildings around the corner from school. I was like “Nah man, I”m not doing that’! Then I changed my mind and said “Whatever son, I need something coming in”.So by divine design and timing and unbeknownst to me I ended up taking out trash for TLC’s lawyers office inside the building. The first time I walked in to take out the trash I was completely shocked and bewildered when I opened the door to see all three of them sitting at the conference table. I was ushered quickly to take out the trash and get the hell out. It was during the time they were suing Pebbles for back money so the temperature was extremely tense in that room that night.After that I was so excited that I had the opportunity to see them in person and the possibility of seeing them again I would go to that job dressed to impress. I was the best dressed janitor on the planet baby! I seen them a couple times but nobody noticed me. So one night I went home and I painted this picture of TLC sitting on one huge toilet and I called it “The Shit”! (Which they eventually used for the World Tour V.I.P. Passes) It was in my portfolio for months and a friend of mine convinced me to go up to LaFace records for whom I already had a relationship with doing work with Outkast and Goodie Mob promotional items. Lisa was on house arrest for the accidental burning down of Andre Risons’ house but they allowed her to go to LaFace during office hours. So I wrapped my painting in news paper with a sticky note on it with my name and number and took a leap of faith.When I got to the office my heart was beating out of my chest and I proceed to get off the elevator and I bump into my college friend named Face Man who I didn’t know at the time, was being managed my Lisa. He asked what was in the package and I said “Oh, something for Left Eye and TLC”…”I’m just going to drop it off and bounce”! He said “Wait..Lisa is around the corner in the restroom, wait one second”…and before I knew it she was right behind me…and then I froze. Time stood still then it went into slow-mo like a Hype Williams video, no seriously! So,I slowly turned around and Face Man gave us the formal introduction and I handed her the piece. Like a kid at X-Mas she ripped through the weak news paper and just stared at it for what seemed an eternity and then her big eyes turned to the size of dinner plates! She loved the hell out of it and asked me to come back to LaFace the following day to discuss working together. I lost my mind but I remained slightly stoic and calm, well at least until I got inside the elevator then I just started screaming like a young girl seeing Michael Jackson in concert for the very first time singing Billie Jean!
The next day I went up to LaFace at 12noon as scheduled but I didn’t get to see Lisa until 7PM that night! Yup, I sat there all damn day to get my chance to talk to her about my ideas and pick her brain. So in the meantime I had to call the manager at the janitor gig and told him that I couldn’t work because I was waiting on Left Eye and he fired me on the spot. At this point I’m super annoyed for waiting eons and looking goofy and then that dude had the audacity to let me go.
So Lisa finally comes out and invites into her makeshift office. She immediately recognizes that I’m slightly pissed and she immediately apologized to me for the wait. Sensing something else was wrong she asked me again what’s wrong and I told her I got fired from that lame job and I needed that extra little cash to keep me a float for a second. She looked at me and asked how much I was making a week there and I replied “About 120 bucks a week”. She smiled and went into her drawer a pulled out a bankroll so thick that it had to have like 3 rubber bands around it to keep it rolled up and then she threw it at me! Lol. She said “I hope that will hold you over for a couple weeks while we make this movement happen”.
We ordered some Philly Chicken Cheese Hoagies and started talking. Within about a couple hours in we had the whole Waterfalls concept down to a science. From the cover to the video it was magnificent what we did in one night, it was nothing short of a miracle. I remember riding the bus home that night thinking to myself “Man, you are about to be apart of making epic history”! I went home, called my Mom, she’s screaming and crying with joy for what I embarked on. So again, that same night I pulled out the paint supplies and went to work relentlessly. I had Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep and Mozart in heavy rotation as I milled away non-stop till the next afternoon. I got up looking like a madman and wrapped up the piece and flew my buns over to LaFace to unleash my madness. Everybody gathered into the conference room and all eyes were on me and without fear I unveiled the now iconic “Waterfalls Cover”!
From that point on Lisa and I were inseparable and became a powerful creative force to be reckoned with and I was forever connected the TLC movement.
"Tell us about some of the other TLC projects you’ve worked on."
So after Waterfalls and it’s impact on the world Lisa and I along with a couple of other friends started a small creative firm called Eso Mega Tec. We then moved on to doing creative work for the album Fan Mail. Initially “Fan Mail” was called Fantasy but La Reid had other ideas for the title. I created all these cool designs of all of them as fairies riding dinosaurs, coming out of 3-D cocoons and other weird and dynamic stuff! I only have one pic of that series left that I can find. It’s a shame that I lost the rest of them. Because I have a photographic memory I can recreate them with no problem and probably even better now! We were doing a lot of experimental things with face manipulations and turning TLC into live animation characters. It was dope but LaFace shut us down again so I said Ok, let me super simply this so I came up with this futuristic look that was inspired by the new clear and color coated iMac! That idea eventually rolled over into the over look for the album and the classic video “No Scrubs” that was directed by Hype Williams. Lisa and I also worked together on the concepts for “Unpretty”.
"You got to hang out with LEFT EYE OF TLC!!!! Ha. Can you tell us about any funny stories you have during your travels?"
Ha! Yea. This time the joke was on me though. Lisa called me out the blue one day and asked me if I wanted to take a trip with her to Miami and if so I had just a couple hours to pack my dopest clothes, sneakers, shades, jewelry and to bring my passport and high tail it to the airport! She explained that we were going to some fancy 5 star micheline rated resort to spend the next few weeks to drink and get wild! I was so amped up to go, I packed up and ZOOOM, I was gone!
I’m sitting in first class looking like a complete young money mogul with all my diamonds and jewelry on sipping on bubbly and really feeling myself! People were asking me what type of business I was in and was I a celebrity of some sort and i said yes to all of it! Lol! I was cracking jokes, taking photos with old rich people who thought I was truly amazing! I loved it. So anyway, I met Lisa in Miami thinking we were hitting South Beach for a whirlwind of larger than life fun only to be interrupted by Lisa telling me we are taking another flight. A private plane to another place! I was like “YESSSS!” I asked where we were going and she told me that I was going to love it and just sit back and enjoy the wine, the buffalo wings and crab legs! I was on another high.
So after another 2-3 hour flight over a jungle area I really got excited. We get off the plane and I’m like “Where the hell are we?”. She laughed and explained that we were in the Honduras. I was like “Dope! Lets Rock Out”! As we were picked up by a ran down Toyota minivan my Spidey sense flew off the charts! We traveled for another 2 hours down this dirty road passing all the hotels that even looked half way decent! Men are walking around with AK-47 assault rifles on motorcycles with their families, including babies on tieback seat! It was so damn bizarre. I’m no stranger to the the obscure and violence at the highest levels but I came to party! I started screaming at Lisa and telling her “What the hell is this crazy shit?” “You told me five star hotels and a good fucking time but you got me in the middle of the goddamn jungle wearing gold and looking like a billion dollars now my face and hair is full of dust and I haven’t seen not one corner bodega, no sign of a club, no resorts, no BEACH, no nothing,..did you take me out here to murder me because right now I’m about to murder YOU!” I was so hot and all she could do is laugh, classic Lisa shit!
We went so deep in the jungle that there were no more street lights, only the lights given off from this bummed out van. We finally arrived in this compound with clay huts. I was like “Hell no, you’re joking right?!” She said “Nope, welcome to your new home for the next few weeks”. I started screaming at Lisa like a wild rabid Lion! Again she laughed and said if I wanted to go home I could but she wasn’t going to help me get back. We were met by Dr.Sebi’s wife Maya and she explained to us how to live in our huts and to be ready for the cleans in the morning and oh, there is a wild black panther on the loose and it had already killed two people this week. You should have seen my damn face! My butt cheeks clinched up from the spice of the buffalo wings and the immediate worry of a panther ripping me a new asshole if I came face to face with it. I looked like a complete jerk looking fancy in the middle of the jungle with Gucci and gold on! Lisa looks at me and say’s “Dope right!!!, 3 weeks with no TV, no communication to the outside world, no food that you are used to, nothing but us and the earth, we are gonna have so much fun”!
I just dropped my bags and my jaw to the dirt floor and was wishing it was all a dream. I wasn’t ready for a cleanse of any sort but I had no choice to adjust to the situation. I bragged about being an Eagle Scout but this jungle terrain was an entirely new beast. I went into my hut and it had one window with a fan blowing hot air. No lights just candles and when the lights came on there was just about every jungle critter sitting inside there. I [saw] snakes on the bed, frogs under the bed, flying cock roaches the size of baby shoes, hairy spiders and centipedes longer than my legs and I’m supposed to sleep in here? It was either that or sleep outside with a reckless panther on the prowl looking for some nice tender New York prime human meat, meaning me.
The cleanse was unbearable and Lisa having been there a few times before and was used to it loved to watch me squirm and thrown the gross and bitter tree bark juice we had to drink 3 times a day. She revered in my total breakdown as a human being but only to bring me back up and raise me with a new body and spirit. And out the kindness of her sweet little heart she took me to what the Honduras calls a “5 Star Restaurant” which in all honesty was really good considering where we were in the middle of no mans land! They even had a little strip club that we went to for kicks to help lighten my unforeseen misery of being trapped but after a while I got used to it and actually ended up enjoying my time there and the warmth of the people who helped guide us.
Lisa and I would run through the jungle chasing iguanas, birds, and anything that crawled. And, even on your journey we found small waterfalls that we could swim in, meditate and crack jokes! Ha! We even made up goofy little dances like the “Reverse Smurf” to keep us laughing and entertained while we cleansed with Dr.Sebi. It was truly an amazing time. I miss her.
"You’ve written some amazing tributes to Lisa in your Instagram stories over the years. What do you miss most about her?"
That’s easy! Her love! She loved hard and unforgivingly strong. The way she laughed at the dumbest things we did for fun and our favorite…elaborate pranking schemes on any and everybody! Her thirst and quest for knowledge of all things spiritual and otherwise. Her generosity saved me and others many a day, trust me! Her genius and fearlessness to go after she wanted at will was so awe inspiring to me. Her quick wit and the way she was able to charm people and make them feel like they have known her all they’re lives! She was always available to me no matter where she was on earth or what time it was she would take my call or fly to where I was to make sure things were cool. And. I truly miss the way she believed in me. She opened me up to a whole new world because of faith in me and my talents and I will always remain grateful to Lisa and God for that.
via Shaw Wonder's Instagram:
"Yeah Baby! We are back in the News again! @reigndroplopes x Lisa Lopes x yours truly were featured on ABC News for our genius concept and contribution to the "Beautify Hollywood" project! A mural of my beloved and best friend Left Eye will grace the streets for all the world to see and admire for years to come in the next few weeks! It's still a work in progress but I'll keep ya'll posted on the process as it unfolds! Bang Bang Bang! #streetart#lefteye #tlc #art #music #hiphop #contemporaryart#news #abcnews #channel7 #popart #abstractart#hollywood #losangeles #california#beautifyhollywood #abceyewitness"
Shah Wonders @shahwonders @pinksickgallery
The mural is still being made. Shah also worked with Lisa on her website Eyenetics.net.