By: Amanda Anderson-Niles
Legendary girl group TLC contributed plenty to music during their hot run in the business, but they are hoping to end their run with a bang. However, the group wants fans to help fund their final album.
When asked why they chose to use Kickstarter to raise funds, Chilli tells Billboard:
“It’s a combination of things. Our manager talked to us about Kickstarter long ago, and maybe he was just planting the seeds back then. Also, I got on Twitter later than most. I already had fans asking, “When are you coming back? We need more music!” Then once our biopic came out, the requests were just overwhelming. Fans have even been sending ideas for what they want a new album cover to look like — they get so creative. They have so much love for us, and we thought, “We gotta do this, and we have to involve the fans.”
Chilli also explained why the record label route wasn’t for them this time around:
“…We worked with L.A. Reid again when we did the movie — we did a song for the soundtrack (“Meant to Be”) and that was a good experience. We had a great time with him. But doing it this way, we have complete creative control. The only people we’ll be talking to and asking their opinion is the fans. That’s it. Doing stuff outside of the box is what TLC does. We came out of the box already out of the box. If we feel like we’re in the box, we’d go crazy. On FanMail, we had thousands of fans’ names inside the CD jacket, we dedicated the whole album to our fans, so this is not new to us — at least the fan involvement part. Kickstarter is perfect for us. It wasn’t something we heard about and just got to it. We did our research, met with the people at Kickstarter — they are brilliant, and they’re excited to work with us. We feel very good about this collaboration.”
Pledges start at $5. You can donate here.
Uhmmm, not to sound mean or nothing, but what happened to Chili’s money from all those reality shows? Couldn’t she ask Floyd? And I’m still a little salty at T-Boz. Eh, maybe I need better convincing.
Reality shows don’t pay that well. That money is probably gone by now.
That’s probably true for most reality shows not part of the Real Housewives franchise. Those shows pay their “stars” very well.
Are they that broke?
*side eye*
This is actually a good idea. It will involve fans more and give TLC creative control they couldn’t get on a label. And they have already raised close to $30,000 in one day. I’m going to donate.
Eh, you gotta do whatcha gotta do.
No ma’am I’m not spending my hard earned money to fund their album. I know they got paid from that vh1 movie not to mention royalties. They should be able to fund this album without kick starter. So they want us to fund it and then pay for the album as well they are crazy.
Awesome marketing strategy, they deserve to do them, and give the fans what the want, as well as involment.
I donated.
I hope the album will be good if fans have to pay for their studio time.
Does the donation come with a copy of the cd or nah?
lol