The Late Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes & Her TLC Mates to be Focus of A&E Network’s “Biography” Documentary

LisaLeft Eye Lopes is getting the biography treatment…

The late part-Mexican American singer, music producer and dancer and her fellow TLC members will be the focus of a two-hour Biography documentary special for A&E Network in 2021. TLC is one of the top-selling girl groups of all time.

TLC

The network greenlit the feature film that tells the story of the group’s meteoric rise to fame in T-Boz and Chilli‘s own words. Oscar– and Emmy-winning director Roger Ross Williams and his One Story Up production company, with Emmy-winning producer Geoff Martz, will executive produce, with Matt Kay as director.

“As someone who has long been in awe of TLC and their musical and cultural impact, I am thrilled to be a part of bringing the story of their music, their journey, and their continuing reverence to the screen,” Williams said in a press statement. “I am grateful for the opportunity to work with A&E, as well as filmmaker Matthew Kay, to bring this film to life. We hope this film illuminates a side of this incredible group and Tionne T-Boz WatkinsLopes, and Rozonda Chilli Thomas that longtime fans and viewers alike have not seen before.”

The ’90s R&B trio has four No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, four multi-platinum albums and four Grammy awards to their name. Their sophomore album CrazySexyCool made them the first girl group to earn a diamond-certified album by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

“The Biography banner has always focused on telling the stories of remarkable people who have had a major impact on our collective culture,” said Elaine Frontain Bryant, evp and head of programming at A&E Network, in a statement. “As a revolutionary group that broke boundaries and influenced an entire generation, TLC falls directly into that category and we are honored to tell their incredible story as it has never been told before.”

On April 25, 2002, Lopes was killed in a car crash while organizing charity work in Honduras. She swerved off the road to avoid hitting another vehicle, and was thrown from her car. She was working on a documentary at the time of her death, which was released as The Last Days of Left Eye and aired on VH1 in May 2007.

Mars & Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” Achieves RIAA Diamond Certification

Bruno Mars has a Funk-y diamond…

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has announced that the 31-year-old part-Puerto Rican singer’s inescapable hit collaboration with Mark Ronson, “Uptown Funk,” has achieved diamond certification.

Bruno Mars in Uptown Funk

The award makes Mars and Ronson only the 10th act to reach 10 million sales for a single or album since the RIAA’s gold and platinum program expanded in 1999 to include a diamond award.

The certification comes less than two years since “Uptown Funk” was released in November 2014 and is the 13th diamond song in RIAA history.

The RIAA’s certification program was launched with the gold record in 1958. Presently, the RIAA awards a gold honor for 500,000 units sold, a platinum honor for 1 million units sold and a diamond award for more than 10 million units sold, with 100 streams counting as one certifiable unit.

“Uptown Funk” has sold over 12,422,016 in downloads and 938,694,569 audio streams in the U.S., according to a press release. The video has streamed over 1.9 billion times.

The track held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 14 weeks, making it the second longest chart topper in the chart’s history.

It was also the best-selling song of 2015 and won the record of the year award at the 2016 Grammy Awards. It has been certified multi-platinum in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Mexico and the United Kingdom as well as being awarded Diamond certification in Canada and France.

Lopez Earns a Spot on Forbes’ List of the Highest-Paid Women in Music

Jennifer Lopez is seeing a whole lot of green

The 44-year-old Puerto Rican singer, actress and returning American Idol judge has been named to Forbes’ list of the highest-paid women in music.

Jennifer Lopez

La Lopez, the highest-ranking Latina on the list, comes in at No. 5 with reported earning of $45 million.  

During the 12-month period used by the magazine, the “On The Floor” singer earned managed to replace the $12 million American Idol salary she’d earned the previous year with a lucrative world tour and earnings from her Latin talent competition Q’Viva.

“I’m a little bit tired now, I’m not going to lie,” she told Forbes last year. “But I feel really in the zone.”

But Lopez isn’t the only Latina to make the list…

Mariah Carey, who replaced Lopez as a judge on the Fox reality singing competition, closed out the list in a tie for tenth place with Nicki Minaj with $29 million.

Carey earned the bulk of her dinero—$18 million—from her Idol gig.

Forbes compiled the list after estimating pre-tax income based on record sales, concert tickets, touring information, merchandise sales and interviews with concert promoters, lawyers and managers. It also looked at data from the Pollstar trade magazine, the Recording Industry Association of America and tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan.

Gomez to Perform “Slow Down” on “The X Factor”

Selena Gomez is ready to slow things down on The X Factor

The 21-year-old half-Mexican American actress/singer will drop by Fox’s reality singing competition on Thursday, November 7 to perform her latest hit single “Slow Down.”

Selena Gomez

The second single from the former Disney Channel star’s No. 1 album Stars Dance was released to radio on August 13. Since then it has been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for selling over 500,000 units of the single in the country.

On Billboard’s Pop Songs chart, it entered the top 10 and peaked at number 7.

Gomez is currently on a world tour to promote the album.

Don’t miss Gomez’s performance on The X Factor at 8:00 pm ET on Fox.