Left Eye Productions Rewind featuring Left Eye’s group Egypt courtesy of The Eye Is Right!
- Meet Egypt (also known as Ejypt), an upcoming American R&B/Pop all singing girl group Lisa mentored and managed. You saw them in ‘Last Days of Left Eye’ singing in a circle for Honduran inmates as Lisa played the drum. The group has had a number of 6 members: Members: Katrina Gibson (aka Akila and Kat) Joy Lonon (aka Zada) Sophia Gibson (aka Isis and SoSo) T’Melle Rawlings (aka T’Nef) Smiley Joans (aka Ley Joans) Amber Quivers egypt The group originated in their hometown Philadelphia, PA in Elementary School. It started off with T’ Melle, Joy, and Sophia with her sister Katrina. The girls were a local group who started singing Gospel music at Third Eternal Baptist Church. The Lopes Family and the Gibson Family used to go to church together. Lisa knew Katrina and Sophia since they were kids. It wasn’t until years later when they were teenagers that the girls decided to become a girl group. The girls performed at shows and even won a Coca-Cola sponsored contest in California. In 2001, as they were entering their 20s, Lisa’s uncle, Kyle Young, discovered they were doing an all girl group. He managed them and tried getting them signed to Sony/BMG, but it didn’t work out. When the girls were about to get signed to Max Gousse (who later became Beyonce’s producer for ‘B’Day’ and ‘I Am… Sasha Fierce’), Uncle Kyle ran them by Lisa again. Lisa knew Katrina and Sophia but didn’t know the other girls. She came to New York City and heard them sing at a restaurant. That day is when she became their manager and mentor. She flew them to Atlanta, GA to live with her and other artists and to work on a demo. Lisa put the girls in Artist Development, had them perform in various locations, and got them signed to Dreamworks Records. Lisa gave them the name Egypt because their image and Gospel harmony reminded her of Egyptian Goddesses, Egyptian royalty was to be image for these beautiful young black women. The Lisa came up with the nicknames Isis (Sophia), Akila (Katrina) , T’Nef (T’ Melle), and Zada (Joy). Lisa decided to take the girls to Honduras with her on March 30th, 2002 to not only enjoy her vacation and a holistic experience, but for a better Artist Development. She wanted them to be mentally, physically, and spiritually ready for the Music Industry. She wanted them to perform for Honduran inmates, join her yoga, meditation, and cleansing treatments, hiking, and also get a good feel of her experience there, site seeing with other friends, family members, and co-workers. Lisa recorded their time there. ‘Last Days of Left Eye’ was actually supposed to be a documentary based on that, but it became more personal for Lisa (you can see more clips on the bonus DVD of Eye Legacy, a remixed album of Lisa’s solo album ‘Supernova’). Unfortunately, the trip had to end early due to the car accident that killed Lisa on April 25th, 2002. Lisa was taking the girls (including her sister, fellow female rapper Phobia from Tha Row, and 3 camera men) to Sambo Creek to site see with the Natives, take photos, and perform. All 4 members were in the car with Lisa and were seriously injured. All had cuts and bruises as well as (Katrina, 22) lower back pain, (Sophia, 19) a fractured clavicle, (Joy, 20) a damaged leg on crutches, and (T’Melle, 19) who suffered a dislocated hip, almost losing her leg. T’Melle was forced to stay behind and ended up not making the funeral. Her mother, Yvonne Rawlings, demanded she stayed there in the hospital for emergency surgery as her father Dwayne Rawlings flew to La Ceiba to be there by his daughter’s side. Although they were injured, at Lisa’s funeral, Joy, Sophia, and Katrina performed one last time for Lisa, physically, without T’ Melle though, saying Goodbye and singing “Thank You”, a Gospel song they covered often that Lisa favored before laying her to rest. egypt2015 Egypt 2015. Kat, SoSo, and Amber. Before her death, Lisa put the girls in the studio, and worked on their first single with them called “Crush on You” as a featured artist. Sadly, it was announced by them during a radio interview a year later that it was her last featured record. The song didn’t get officially released. It did get radio play and a fan recorded the song and posted it online. You can only find the song on YouTube at the moment and SoundCloud. The girls were later dropped from Dreamworks Records. During that time frame, right after the accident, only one of the Egypt group members (T’ Melle) publicly took action to not only sue Lisa’s estate for the accident in the ‘Rawlings VS Colemon’ case, but sue the company who designed the vehicle they were in with Lisa’s mother. After the accident, the group took an extremely long break. T’Melle decided to leave the group. Egypt decided to come back from their long overwhelming break around the release of ‘Eye Legacy’ in 2009, a posthumous album for Lisa by The Lopes Family. The family also released an EP called ‘Forever… The EP’ where Egypt finally get an officially released song called “By The Way”, a thank you ballad dedicated to Lisa. They also released a song called “Changes” on their Myspace page that year and did a song with Phobia and Yung Joc called “Knockoffs” (which is currently shelved). Even though it was those three, a year later in 2010 when it was announced that the they were finally dropping a project, a mixtape called ‘The Jonres of Music’, fans ended up seeing only 2 familiar faces on the cover: Katrina and Sophia. Joy was no longer apart of the group and was replaced by a new face by the name of Ley Jones. The girls decided to abandon the names Lisa gave them and created new names – Katrina decided to go by Kat, Sophia decided to go by SoSo, and Ley became Smiley. They also changed the name from Egypt to Ejypt. On the mixtape, the were covering music from Drake (“Find Your Love”) to Usher (“OMG”) to Alicia Keys (Un-Thinkable (I’m Ready), They also have a song dedicated to Lisa and a song dedicated to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti and sang Lisa’s favorite gospel song that they used to sing for her called “Thank You”. smiley Smiley The mixtape was getting some attention. However, Smiley decided to leave the group to pursue more in a solo career as well. She simply just goes by the name of Ley Joans. She made appearances on shows and events including the “Miss Black Penn State University Pageant”, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs ‘Making the Band’ seasons 3, and also in “Oprah Winfrey’s Talent Search”. She released her first solo project, an EP titled “I Wanna Dance” in 2012. It received good reviews and she released her first music video for the song off the EP, “Made 4 This”, in 2014. Ley wasn’t the only one coming hard solo, T’ Melle is coming hard as well, making hell of noise! T’ Melle ended up catching the ears of Usher as she kept performing as a solo artist. She went on one of his tours with him as his background singer and ended up working with both Usher and famous R&B songwriter Michael B. Cox. Also she worked with Waka Flocka Flame, Future, T-Pain, and Tricky Stewart, lending her vocals until she decided to drop her own mixtape in 2015 called ‘The Interview’, hosted by DJ Scream and DJ X-Rated. She released her song “Pill” from the project and released her first music video to her song “Drop it Down”. The project gained a lot of good buzz and T’ Melle is still going! She recently dropped a track covering Rihanna’s hit new song “Kiss it Better”! She just dropped a new song called “Crossed the Line” featuring Kevin Gates and is finishing an EP that is currently untitled. Back to Egypt, after Ley left the group back in 2011, Joy ended up re-joining the group. They released a song called “Take it or Leave it” a year before they recorded and shot their first music video to their officially first single, “Quarter Girls” in 2012, ten years after the accident and Lisa’s death. After a couple of interviews as a trio, singing on radio again, Joy decided to leave the group once more, but to be a solo artist as well. No details yet on her music. Once again, fans were then introduced with a new face by the time Egypt performed again at the Left Eye Music Festival. Katrina and Sophia are still holding the group down but with a new member, Amber Quivers, and went back to the name Egypt. T'Melle T’Melle Recently, Katrina and Sophia have been seen hanging with Lisa’s other girl group Blaque. They’ve been posting photos and videos together on their Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts either hanging together, having fun, or singing together. There’s even an Instagram page they have called BlaquEjypt with exclusive Egypt footage. Katrina has even been doing Shamari’s new recent hair styles and have been sharing them via her Instagram page @KattsHair with other hair styles as she explores more as a Hair Stylist. It’s not clear if Egypt have been working on new music as well together and with Blaque. They’re mixtape ‘Jonres of Music’ is no longer available for download anywhere online anymore, but you can still find “Quarter Girls”, “Crush on You”, and “Take it or Leave it” on YouTube or SoundCloud.