R&B girl groups TLC and SWV both ‘iconic’ but totally different

Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins

TLC and SWV. Both girl groups go by three-letter acronyms. Both originally had three members. Both were formed and peaked in the 1990s, a halcyon era that provided fertile grounds for R&B acts.

But as their recent back-to-back show at Smart Araneta Coliseum showed, such similarities between these two iconic girl groups are mostly superficial. Music-wise, the style they have and the vibe they exude are uniquely different, accentuating the diversity within their genre.

Short for “Sisters with Voices,” SWV—Coko Gamble, Tamara Johnson-George and Lelee Lyons—was first to perform. And right off the bat, they made it very clear why the group was named as such.

They had no backup dancers; their costumes, mostly subdued, save for their brightly colored hair and the gold sequins on their jacket sleeves.
For these ladies, it was all about the vocals.

Whether it was a slow love jam, a gospel-inflected ditty or a doo-wop ballad, their harmonies were always on point. They shimmied, pulled off sassy little dance moves, as they bent and flipped notes with stunning ease.

And whenever the numbers neared climax, Coko—the vocalist with the most expansive range—would step up and bring the house down with searing belted notes.

SWV, which disbanded in 1998 and reunited in 2005, thrilled the crowd with its staples, like the funky “I’m So Into You” and the carefree “Right Here.” It also introduced new material, including “Ain’t No Man” and “Man Crush Every Day,” from its latest album, “Still.”

But as expected, the one song that had concertgoers waving their lighted phones aloft was the ballad, “Weak”—arguably SWV’s defining song.

Midway through SWV’s set, its members gave a shoutout to one of their “homegirls,” Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, TLC’s former rapper, who died in a tragic car crash back in 2002. “We have to knock this thing out for her, OK?,” Lelee told the audience.

But the void Lisa left was too great not to be noticed and felt. One of the reasons TLC became America’s bestselling girl group was the magical interplay among her, Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins produced.

Lisa was a magnetic presence onstage, the most explosive dancer of the lot. Chilli and T-Boz wouldn’t touch Lisa’s parts.

And so it was poignant that, whenever Lisa’s rap segments came on—now merely the studio recording being blasted from the speakers—the sizable crowd would erupt into screams, and eagerly take over. Others sang with fists raised, in her honor.

TLC isn’t the most vocally impressive group, especially compared to its 1990s contemporaries, like the one that took the stage before it, En Vogue or Xscape. In fact, there were not a few moments in the concert—mounted by MMI Live—where it was quite apparent that the sound filling the arena wasn’t exactly coming from their mouths.

But whatever inadequacies the group may have lacked in the singing department, it more than made up for with swagger, spunk and crossover appeal. TLC set trends and was—and, still is—effortlessly cool. More importantly, TLC has the most formidable discography among its peers, its songs reaching No. 1, on both the R&B and pop charts.

Supported by a group of backup dancers, Chilli and T-Boz cranked up the energy and bounced around to such hits as “Creep,” “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg” and “No Scrubs.”

“Waterfalls,” one of TLC’s signature songs (and one of its most socially conscious works), was dedicated to Lisa, who loved it dearly when she was still alive. For a second time that night, thousands of lights fluttered in the dark.