Lisa `Left Eye' Lopes, member of grammy award-winning trio TLC, dies in car crash in Honduras

Jet, May 13, 2002

Funeral services recently were held for TLC singer-rapper Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta. She died a month shy of her 31st birthday.

Lopes was killed when she lost control of the wheel while driving a Mitsubishi Montero in Honduras. The rented sports utility vehicle hit two trees and tumbled off a road. The performer, who reportedly wasn't wearing a seat belt, was dead on arrival at the hospital. An autopsy showed that she died of a fractured skull.

Seven others were in the vehicle with her, but she was the only fatality. Those injured included Lopes' brother, Ronald, and sister, Raina; three members of an Atlanta group she was working with called Egypt; and two producers working on a multimedia project with Lopes.

The entertainer often volunteered at a children's development center and would go to an herbal healing village, the Usha Herbal Resource Institute, in Honduras to heal and meditate. She was headed to the healing village at the time of the accident.

The feisty entertainer won fame in the early '90s as a part of the rap-song trio TLC, whose name represented its members T-Boz (Tionne Watkins), Left Eye (Lopes) and Chilli (Rozonda Thomas).

When the group first arrived on the music scene in 1992 with its debut album, Oooooooh ... On the TLC Tip, it was noted for wearing neon-colored condoms and Band-Aids on its outfits.

Known for her playful, childlike voice, Left Eye would often perform raps on the group's songs which were lauded for addressing female empowerment and safe sex. She earned the nickname because of the condom she often wore to replace a lens in her glasses.

With hit songs like Ain't Too Proud To Beg, What About Your Friends, Hat To Da Back, Baby Baby Baby, Creep, Red Light Special and No Scrubs, the group eventually earned four Grammy Awards and went on to make history as the top album-selling female group in music history.

The group made its acting debut in the 1994 comedy House Party 3. TLC portrayed an aspiring singing group named Sex as a Weapon.

"We had all grown up together and were as close as a family," Watkins and Thomas said in a statement. "Today we have truly lost our sister."

Lopes' personal life took center stage in 1994 when she torched the house of her boyfriend, former Atlanta Falcon Andre Rison. She was fined and sentenced to five years of probation and then entered rehab to deal with a drinking problem.

That same year, TLC released the multi-platinum-selling album CrazySexyCool, which produced the popular song Waterfalls. The socially conscious tune, which Lopes co-wrote and said was born out of that dark period in her life, went on to become one of the group's biggest songs.

In 1997 she recorded the song Ladies Night (Not Tonight remix), which also featured Lil' Kim, Missy Elliott, Da Brat and Angie Martinez. The song appeared on the Nothing to Lose soundtrack. The following year Lopes hosted MTV's dance show "The Cut" in 1998. A couple of years ago Lopes was credited with discovering the female trio Blaque.

More recently Lopes signed with Suge Knight's Death Row Records Label, now called Tha Row. She was going by the stage name N.I.N.A. (New Identity Non-Applicable).

Survivors include her mother, Wanda; a sister, Raina; and a brother, Ronald; and an adopted daughter.