T-Boz Biography

T-Boz Biography

Family moved from Des Moines to Atlanta, Georgia, when Tionne Watkins was nine years old. After a career as a hair stylist, Watkins auditioned for Atlanta teenager Crystal Jones' music group 2nd Nature. Jones, Watkins, and Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes eventually attracted the attention of Perri "Pebbles" Reid and her husband, LaFace Records chief Antonio "L.A." Reid. L.A. Reid replaced Jones with Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas, and the group was signed in 1991 as TLC, which would go on to become one of the most successful girl groups in history and sell over 45 million records worldwide.

Watkins first showed her lower register in the hit single, "Red Light Special" ("you might as well be honest, cause the body never lies.") She has also proven she can hit a higher note on TLC's single "What About Your Friends" in the introduction "...what..." On a remake of Prince's "If I Was Your Girlfriend", T-Boz used her falsetto for the first time.

In addition to her work in TLC, Watkins has done some solo recording, including the singles "Touch Myself" (1996) for the Fled soundtrack, and "My Getaway" (2000) from the Rugrats in Paris: The Movie soundtrack. T-boz has also collaborated with other artists over the years. This include singles such as "Ghetto Love" (1996) by the Da Brat, "Changes" (1996) by Society of Soul, "He Say She Say" (2000) by Keith Sweat (wrote and produced by Andrew Lane), "Different Times" (2002) by Raphael Saadiq, and "Be Somebody" by Paula Cole.

As an author, Watkins released the book Thoughts in November 1999. The book is collection of poems as well as essays discussing her life experiences.

Watkins recently opened a children's boutique in Houston, Texas, called Chase's Closet (apparently named for her daughter). The boutique is located in the exclusive River Oaks area of Houston.[1] She is set to launch her own clothing line for kids under the same name this coming November 2006. She also has plans to launch a candle line called Anela's Way.

Watkins has also worked as an actress, appearing in Hype Williams' 1998 film Belly. More recently, Watkins also served as one of the executive producers for the 2006 movie ATL featuring the rapper, T.I..

Tionne was supposed to be providing one of the voices in Andre Benjamin (a/k/a André 3000)'s new Cartoon Network series Class of 3000 in the fall of 2006, but has since then been replaced. She recently did a video for the track "It's Good" with YoungBloodZ, which appears at the end of their Chop Chop video.

T-Boz was also named one of the "50 Most Beautiful People of the World" by People Magazine twice in 1994 and 2000.

December of 2006 a web design and graphic company set up a Online Street Team for Tionne's store Chases Closet and worked with Tara Rowntree as well as T-Boz for exclusive contests for TLC fans, exclusive pictures, and more. NhP2 Media Inc. worked on several web site graphics for the store and personal projects as well. AS OF AUGUST THE MYSPACE PAGE WAS DELETED BY ACCIDENT AND WILL RELOAD AS A FULL WEBSITE WINTER 08

On August 14, 2007, T-Boz spoke with CyberTLC World about upcoming plans which included her solo album which she started recording for 3 weeks ago. She currently has 17 tracks completed and is planning on hitting up to at least 30 songs before she selects the final tracklisting. No plan date on the album at the moment.

Watkins also spoke about a possible TLC movie in which bandmember, Rozonda Thomas, is pretty interested in making. At the moment there is no word whether or not T-Boz and Chilli will be playing themselves. An upcoming TLC-related television program is also in the works as well as an "uplifting" book that Watkins is currently in the midst of writing.

During the interview, Tionne also spoke about TLC's future as a band, stating it was not likely that there will ever be another album from the group but that there will possibly be a farewell tour sometime before she releases her solo project. A full interview can be found on the TLC fansite, CyberTLC World at www.cybertlcworld.net and www.cybertlcforums.com.


T-Boz also spoke with CyberTLC again on August 29th, 2007. This time she spoke on her split with Mack 10, talked more about her solo album and a track that will be appearing on it, and more. As with the previous interview, visit CyberTLC World for the entire audio interview.Watkins appears on bandmate Chilli's debut solo single Gameproof.