Lisa Lopez
After TLC's third album, Fanmail (1999), Lopes in 2000 became a featured rapper on several singles by other musicians, including former Spice Girl Melanie C's "Never Be The Same Again" and Donell Jones' debut single, "U Know What's Up". She also sang "Space Cowboy" with N Sync, a song from their 2000 album No Strings Attached.
Lopes was also the host of the short-lived MTV series, The Cut, a precursor to American Idol in which a handful of would-be pop stars, rappers, and rock bands competed against each other and were judged. The show's final winner, which ended up being a male-female rap duo, was promised a record deal and MTV's funding to produce a music video, which would enter MTV's heavy rotation. A then-unknown Anastacia finished in third place, but so impressed Lopes and the show's three judges that she scored herself a record deal anyway.
Lopes discovered the group Blaque and helped them obtain a record deal with Columbia Records. Their self-titled debut album was executive-produced by Lopes, who also made a cameo appearance on the album.
Lopes spent much of her free time after the conclusion of TLC's first headling tour behind Fanmail recording her first solo album, Supernova. Amongst the album's 12 tracks was a posthumous duet with Tupac Shakur that was assembled from the large cache of unreleased recordings done prior to his murder in 1996. (Lopes also participated in a second posthumous duet with Tupac on one of the many CDs compiled by his estate and released since his death.) Initially scheduled for release on a date to coincide with the 10th anniversary of her father's passing, Supernova was then delayed for two months before her American label chose to shelve the project immediately. The album did get released outside of the United States, and hardcore American TLC fans caused a demand for import copies of the album from England and Japan, but the album never came out domestically. Lopes then severed her solo deal with Arista (she remained contracted with the label as a member of TLC) and signed with Tha Row Records (the former Death Row label), intending to record a second solo album under the pseudonym N.I.N.A.
Lopes had already started work on both that second solo album and on songs for the fourth TLC album, 3D, when she died in a car crash in Honduras in April 2002. She had been there doing missionary work, which was something she had a passion for.
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