TLC “No Scrubs” hit #1

No Scrubs TLC

Writer(s): Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs, Kandi Burruss, Tameka "Tiny" Cottle, Lisa Lopes (see lyrics here) Released: February 2, 1999 First Charted: February 19, 1999 Peak: 14 BB, 113 BA, 2 GR, 2 RR, 39 A40, 110 RB, 3 UK, 12 CN, 17 AU, 20 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 5.0 US, 2.4 UK, 8.26 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.4 radio, 434.20 video, 1002.04 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: TLC’s 1994 sophomore album, Crazy Sexy Cool, sold 15 million copies worldwide and gave the trio two #1 singles, making them “the most popular girl group on the planet.” SG It would be five years before their next release, thanks to an exploitive contract that forced them to file for bankruptcy. However, they roared back in 1999 with Fan Mail and the lead single, “No Scrubs.” In the first line of the song, TLC explain that, “A scrub is a guy who thinks he’s fly and is also known as a busta — always talking ’bout what he wants and just sits on his broke ass.” “The members of TLC are sick of hearing pickup lines from chumps, and they spend the song telling the world exactly what they don’t want – deadbeats, guys who look like trash, anyone with the temerity to hang out the side of his best friend’s ride trying to holler at them.” SG “It’s mean but pretty. It disrupts and soothes at the same time. There’s a strange beauty to the way those voices drift over the complicated drum patterns and sparkly chopped-up guitar notes. When the backup singers come together to softly murmur the song’s title again and again, they sound almost mystical.” SG The song was written by producer Kevin “She’kspere” Briggs with Kandi Burruss and Tameka “Tiny” Cottle, former members of Xscape, another R&B girl group. They had four top-ten hits and three platinum albums before LaTocha Scott left for a solo career. Burruss and Cottle intended to move forward as the group KAT. When they reworked a song by She’kspere as “No Scrubs,” they weren’t intending to shop it, but after he played it for TLC’s producer Dallas Austin he wanted it for his group. FB It is “a gleaming, gorgeous example” SG of the “the sleek alien textures and jittery herky-jerk drum programming that Timbaland brought to the R&B mainstream,” SG although he didn’t work with TLC on the song. “A fluttering acoustic guitar line dissolves into a frantic popping sound. When the beat kicks in, the layers of sound pile up – the humming synth-strings, the stop-start drums, the dancing hi-hat.” SG Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins sang lead on every previous TLC song, but Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas took the mike for “No Scrubs.” She “doesn’t have T-Boz’s all-consuming languor, and she doesn’t need it. She just needs to project authority, and she does that beautifully.” SG Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes delivers “a rap verse, a fun chattery burst of verbiage,” SG that appears only on the single version of the song. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for TLC FB Fred Bronson (2007). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (4th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 880. SG Stereogum (7/6/2022). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan Related Links: First posted 4/6/2024.