Rozonda Thomas

About

Rozonda Ocielian Thomas (born February 27, 1971), also known by her stage name Chilli, is an American singer, dancer and actress who is a member of the group TLC, one of the best-selling girl groups of the late 1990s.

Thomas was born in Columbus, Georgia. She later moved to Atlanta to be with her mother and graduated from Benjamin Elijah Mays High School in 1989. Her father, Abdul Ali, is of Indian Bengali and Arab descent, while her mother, Ava Thomas, is of African American and Native American descent.
Thomas, who had been raised by her mother, later allowed the Sally Jessy Raphael television talk show to air footage of her meeting her father for the first time in 1996, when she was 25.
When she was a child, her great-grandmother, whom she called Big Mama, took her to the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Thomas was first a dancer for Damian Dame. In 1991, she joined TLC, replacing founding member Crystal Jones, and was nicknamed “Chilli” by Lisa Lopes so that the group could retain the name TLC. The group went on to sell over 65 million records worldwide and became the best-selling American girl group of all-time; only the…