Maps of Music

Chocolate Factory (2003)

Where the lyrics of Chocolate Factory take you, and where it was really made.

Chocolate Factory began as a planned 2002 album called Loveland, which was scrapped amid bootlegging before the record came out under a new title.

Key places

Main recording site in Chicago (2003)

Recording site Chicago Recording Company — Most sessions for the album were held in Chicago, Illinois, at Chicago Recording Company and Rockland Studios. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Chocolate Factory: fifth studio album by R. Kelly
• Released 18 February 2003 by Jive Records; the UK release came one day earlier, on 17 February
• Written, arranged, and produced entirely by R. Kelly
• Debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200
• Has sold over 3 million copies worldwide

Background

• Originally titled Loveland, planned for 2002 but scrapped amid bootlegging
• Conceived by Kelly amid controversy over his sex scandal at the time
• Released after a year of legal accusations of child pornography, for which he was acquitted in 2008
• First-run copies included a bonus disc called Loveland, a seven-track EP
• The bonus disc is abridged and mostly different from the bootleg of Loveland
• A few songs from Loveland were included on Chocolate Factory, but the original version was never released

Recording

• Sessions mainly held at Rockland Studios and Chicago Recording Company in Chicago, Illinois
• Other locations: the Record Plant in Los Angeles, Soup Can Music in Harper Woods, Michigan, and Vanguard Studios in Oak Park, Michigan
• Slow jams and upbeat club tracks, many drawing on classic soul music
• Call-and-response choruses and harmonies inspired by the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder
• Kelly's vocals move between singing and rapping
• Most lyrics focus on romance

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · pt.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com

Tracklist

Disc 1

Disc 2

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Born Robert Sylvester Kelly on January 8, 1967, on Chicago's South Side, Illinois.
• Began performing in the subway under Chicago "L" tracks, busking at the Jackson station on the Red Line.
• Joined the group MGM (Musically Gifted Men) formed in 1989, which won a $100,000 prize on the TV show Big Break in 1991 before disbanding.

Career

• Signed with Jive Records in 1991; debut Born into the 90's (1992, with Public Announcement) yielded hits including "She's Got That Vibe".
• Solo album 12 Play (1993) produced the number-one hit "Bump N' Grind", which spent a record 12 weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart.
• "I Believe I Can Fly" (1996) won three Grammy Awards in 1998.
• Wrote and produced "You Are Not Alone" for Michael Jackson, which debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100.
• Sold over 75 million records worldwide; Billboard ranked him the 9th greatest R&B artist of all time.
• Convicted in 2021 and 2022 on child sex offences and sentenced to a combined 31 years; his career ended after these convictions.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Metacritic average score of 65 from 10 reviews, indicating generally favorable reviews
• Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times found the album elegant and strange
• Mojo praised the album as positively inspired and an impressively varied opus
• BBC Online wrote that Kelly sounded like a revived soul in spiritual euphoria rather than a man carrying the weight of the world
• Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone cited the album as among the best work of Kelly's career and said he was at the top of his game as singer, songwriter, and producer
• Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine gave a mixed review, writing that Kelly's songwriting skills leave much to be desired
• Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune read the album as musical spin control, as much a public-relations manifesto as an R&B album
• Robert Christgau singled out Ignition (Remix) as the only worthy song and dismissed the album's acclaim as tied to news value amid the child pornography charges

Records

• Debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with first-week sales of over 532,000 copies
• Ignition (Remix) peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, and the album sold over 2.72 million copies in the United States
• Certified double platinum by the RIAA on 19 May 2003 for shipments of over two million copies in the US
• Certified gold by the BPI for shipments of over 100,000 copies in the UK
• Nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary R&B Album
• Ranked seventh among the best-selling albums in the US in 2003 with 2,439,536 copies sold

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The album's packaging design closely resembles the design of Parliament's Chocolate City album.
• Kelly mentions Loveland by name in the remix of Step in the Name of Love.
• Only two songs from the Loveland bonus disc, The World's Greatest and Far More, leaked on bootleg copies of Loveland.
• Step in the Name of Love, Forever, and You Knock Me Out were leaked in 2002 on bootleg copies of Loveland.
• Chicago Recording Company was among the places where the album was recorded, and it also received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary R&B Album in 2004.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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