Happy 20th Anniversary to Prince’s twenty-ninth studio album The Chocolate Invasion and thirtieth studio album The Slaughterhouse, originally released March 29, 2004.
When you think about it, it’s the height of temerity for a corporation to decree what a creator can create, how, for whom, and how often. Capitalism is pretty cocky.
Prince was 19 when he first signed with Warner Bros. Records on June 25, 1977. Having bitterly wrestled himself away from a restrictive contract with them in 1996, he poured energy first and foremost into his own NPG label. With restraint cast off, he reveled in the audaciously triune Emancipation (1996) and storied, quintuple Crystal Ball (1998). Though this stupefying volume of music was fairly Billboard chart-phobic, fans were happy to glut themselves on it.
Still, in hopes of a breakthrough like Santana’s Supernatural (1999). Prince briefly entangled with Clive Davis, CEO of Arista Records, for Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999). Perhaps he should have stayed single. Creative differences resulted in a commercial misfire with no love lost between the two heavyweights.
Taking matters into his own hands, Prince minted the subscription-model NPG Music Club in 2001 to deliver music directly to his fans with no executive stops to impede the process. Despite years of variable success for this outlet, Prince struck a deal with Columbia Records to distribute the well-received comeback Musicology (2004). Capitalism may be cocky, but Prince was cockier. Seizing a promotional opportunity, he unveiled The Chocolate Invasion and The Slaughterhouse on March 29, 2004—the same release date for the digital version of Musicology.
Assisted by minimal sidemen including Kip Blackshire, Morris Hayes, Larry Graham, Najee, and Marva Hicks among others, these two volumes of material exclusive to NPG Music Club offer generous helpings of the grit, sex, and undiluted creativity filtered out of their mainstream sibling. Where Musicology emphasized band-driven funk and soul, Chocolate and Slaughter supplement as respective feminine and masculine montages of pop-rock largesse, electronica, smooth jazz, and hip-hop Minneapolis style.
Listen to The Chocolate Invasion:
The Chocolate Invasion begins with “When Eye Lay My Hands on U,” the first track to debut via NPG Music Club. As he whispers his opening lines, Prince is close enough to lick the mic. This quietude soon gives way to a raging slow-burn of psychedelic guitar on the chorus. It’s an atypical mode, but one that quickly warms the ear. This and most Chocolate tracks were originally sourced from a Prince album in 2000 called High that was ultimately abandoned.
Making its way to Chocolate Invasion, the former title track “High” flexes both the vocal range and joyous egotism of the artist, indicating the kind of estival energy High might have carried. Its promotion began with a single and video for “U Make My Sun Shine,” roping in Angie Stone for the old school slow dance. Capturing the zeitgeist of the time, “Judas Smile” is mildly reminiscent of Destiny’s Child’s “Bug a Boo” with Prince’s deadly guitar work replacing Beyonce’s multisyllabic verses. It’s from this track’s call-to-arms chant that the album takes its title (“The Chocolate Invasion starts here”).
Often bright and jittery, Chocolate clearly aims to move the hips of beach bunnies in low-cut blue jeans and white tube tops. It’s evident in flirty tunes like “Supercute” (“On a dare / I wanna see if she will share / The kinda toys she uses when I'm not there / None at all / She swears”) or “My Medallion,” a raucous tale of Prince getting robbed by a klepto-aphrodisiac (“Don’t know why / I want that girl!”). At first, “Vavoom” was pitched for Mariah Carey’s Glitter (2001), but she wasn’t moved by the ditty. Nonetheless, it’s a horn-heavy, caffeinated mover that coincidentally—sounds like “Cream.”
While on the subject, the lesser-known but no-less-enjoyable “Underneath the Cream” is the type of freaknasty Prince ballad you hope is hidden on every album. Even with its Patrice Rushen-like jazz undertones, it was probably the first to be swept into the vault as Prince became more devout in his faith. Ironically, it’s more libidinous than the deceptively titled “Sexmesexmenot,” a Cameo, Ohio Players, or Bar-Kays type jam your uncle might barbecue to at a picnic in the park.
Though it’s unknown why High was pulled, it was replaced by the heavily introspective and spiritually concerned The Rainbow Children (2001) reflecting Prince’s conversion to the Jehovah’s Witness faith. This fits his penchant for reversing course at the last minute as with The Black Album (1994), withdrawn a week before its originally scheduled release in favor of the lighter and notably more religious Lovesexy (1987).
It's a wonder The Slaughterhouse didn’t stay vaulted as it skews pretty black. The more aggressive of the two compilations, Slaughter is greasier, darker, and sometimes scowling between its meandering grooves (“The Daisy Chain,” “S&M Groove”) and gospel-funk (“Props’N’Pounds,” “Northside,” “Peace”). It takes its title from a line in “Silicon,” a loose, Matrix-informed hip-hop manifesto. Despite his delayed embrace of the genre, he leans heavily on rap here and in the pompous-but-justified “Y Should Eye Do That When Eye Could Do This.” Brightening up the shadows is the airy house approximation “Hypnoparadise” that plays like a see-through beach resort cocktail—light on alcohol but it can still facilitate a good time.
Listen to The Slaughterhouse:
An interesting inclusion is Prince’s incite-a-riot track lifted from the soundtrack of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (2000). In it, he takes the music industry to task. “How can a non-musician discuss the future of music from anything other than a consumer point of view?” Prince warns at the start of “2045: Radical Man.” “These people make decisions for the bulk of us without consulting any of us.” He didn’t name names, but on another Slaughterhouse cut, there’s little effort to hide the object of his ire.
Mentions of Prince were tangential and conspicuously scant in Clive Davis’ 2013 autobiography. However, following Davis’ ouster from Arista in 2000, Prince put his commentary on record with the classy, contemptuous “Golden Parachute.” There is nary a raised voice in this aqueous, neo-soul meditation as he casually lets off shot… (“In appreciation 4 all the creations we now own / do U want a golden parachute?”) after shot… (“They worship U / all up under U / applauding one who in truth created nothing”) after shot (“Here’s 50 million dollars to go along with this… boot”).
Predictably, Musicology attracted award-winning attention while Chocolate Invasion and Slaughterhouse remained chained in the basement. That is, until December 3, 2015, when the pair of rarities saw daylight on Jay-Z’s TIDAL streaming service, eventually releasing on other DSP services in 2018. Because of this widespread release, the public can now glimpse that even in obscurity Prince remains a genius.
“Prince has the right approach too,” says MTV’s Kurt Loder as sampled on “Props’N’Pounds.” “The gift of simplicity is a keynote of art. He knows when to stop”—(the music pauses)—“…usually.” And of course, the music continues, because keeping the music going is what Prince is best at. Even his surplus and excess on Chocolate and Slaughter maintain such detail and nonpareil quality that he can rival or even upstage his mainstream releases without even trying very hard.
Some artists need out-of-touch executives who still snap on the 1-and-3 to tell them what will fit in with everything else on the radio. But Prince spent most of the ‘80s and ‘90s proving his ability to deliver that and more. And why should he continue to do that…when he could do this?
Listen: