Left Eye Delivering Solo Supernova... Finally! (2001)

07.03.2001

It's not that you shouldn't have believed that Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes was dropping a solo album. It's just that TLC's most outspoken member has been talking about her record for so many years without delivering, you had to start to wonder if it was going to happen while she was still young enough to perform selections from the LP without using a walker to get onstage.

However, it looks like Left Eye is ready to stop selling wolf-tickets and show and prove. Supernova is scheduled to arrive on August 14, and the album's first single, "The Block Party," is being shipped to radio stations across the country.

On the bounce track, produced by Salaam "The Chameleon" Remi, Left Eye takes it back to the old school, rapping about the days of way back when the kids around the way used to do the wop dance, play hopscotch, pop lock and wear fat gold chains. Lopes also goes into a sing-songy call-and-response with a child before a voice that sounds like one of the Lollipop Kids sings about music "pumping" and "jumping." Left Eye sheds the playfulness on "Hot, Hot," lamenting, "She's the one you thought would never do a solo LP." Rhyming with a deeper, sterner vocal inflection over Rockwilder's bullying basslines, Lopes goes on to liken herself to "Einstein in Carmen Jones' body." A male voice then tells "Ms. Left Eye" that everyone from teachers to thugs have been wondering where she's been.

On "I Believe in Me," the drama-bringing diva declares "I'm Diana Ross, not a Supreme." However, on the song she insists that she loves TLC and the only time they have problems is when they let others get involved in their affairs. She then vents that people don't really know the real Lisa, but that the only things that really matter are her faith in herself and her bond with her family.

Left Eye is looking to add an extra member to her family, but no time soon. With her busy schedule, her spokesperson has confirmed that she and NFL star Andre Rison have postponed their July 5 wedding in Atlanta. In a statement issued to the press, Left Eye wryly said, "We are together, but when It happens, it happens." For now, Left Eye is surrounding herself with her musical family of T-Boz and Chilli. The trio is recording tracks for its new album, which its label says will be out before the end of the year. The video for "The Block Party" is being shot July 9 and 10 in Los Angeles.

— Shaheem Reid