This story and discography are copyright 2006 by Mike Callahan :

 

Chocolate City was a Casablanca subsidiary exclusively dedicated to R&B artists. It was founded by Cecil Holmes (II), Neil Bogart's co-worker and soundtrack music director during the Buddah years. He was also possibly a minor partner with Bogart in founding Casablanca Records. Holmes had been in the record business for quite a long time. As a young man in the mid-1950s, he was a lead singer for the Cavaliers Quintet, a Brooklyn-based vocal group who recorded for the Atlas label. Later, he joined the Fi-Tones, who also recorded for Atlas. He then, like Bogart, became a promo man in the industry, pushing records with radio stations. The two worked together at Buddah, then left to form Casablanca. The name of the Chocolate City label was taken from the title of a 1975 album by Parliament that had been issued on Casablanca. From the design of the label, it appears to have been designed to be a "black Casablanca." The artist roster included Cameo, Blacksmoke (aka Smoke), Brenda & the Tabulations, Vernon Burch, Starpoint, the 7th Wonder, Townsend Townsend & Rogers, Randy Brown, the Funkateers, Rosco & Mabel, and Kevin Moore. The label stars were Cameo and Starpoint. After Casablanca was sold to PolyGram in 1980, the Chocolate City imprint was successful enough to continue under PolyGram. In 1982, however, Holmes left the label to become a vice president of Epic Records, and was there during the Michael Jackson Thriller era. The Chocolate City label, deprived of its executive, quietly closed their doors. The Chocolate City label was brown (which could change to a more orange one at random) with black lettering and "Chocolate City" written in brown cursive lettering on the top and left half of the label and a black "Bogart" character on the right. The following text is written in the form of an arc at the bottom of the label: "Manufactured and Distributed by Casablanca Records, Inc., 8255 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90046."

 

The suffix matrix signification :

* CCLP-20xx : stands for Chocolate City Long Play series
 * CCD -2000x : stands for Chocolate City Disco series

 

 

All CHOCOLATE CITY LP imprint releases in chronological order :

.: Don't miss also our 12" single listing >>

 

• CCLP-2003  Artist : CAMEO Album Title: "Cardiac Arest" Details :  Available...	CCLP-2004 Artist : CAMEO Album Title: "We All Know Who We Are" Details :  Available...	CCLP-2006 Artist : CAMEO Album Title: "Ugly Ego" Details :  Available...
  CCLP-2008 Artist : CAMEO Album Title: "Secret Omen" Details :  Available...	CCLP-2011  Artist : CAMEO Album "Cameosis" Details :  Available...	CCLP-2016 Artist : CAMEO Album Title: "Feel Me" Details :  Available...
  CCLP-2019 Atist : CAMEO Album Title: "Knights Of The Sound Table" Details :  Available...	CCLP-2021 Artist : CAMEO Album Title: "Alligator Woman" Details :  Available...