Albums I wish existed: Mocha

Aleesha Richards was a female hip-hop rapper who performed under the name Mocha in the late 1990s/early 2000s. She was featured on Nicole Wray’s top ten Billboard hit ‘Make It Hot’ in 1998, and subsequently guested on other singers and rappers’ singles including Missy Elliott’s ‘Hit Em Wit Da Hee’, DJ Clue’s ‘I Like Control’ and Sporty Thievez’s ‘Even Cheaper’. In 2001, she recorded an album titled ‘Hot Chocolate’, later renamed ‘Bella Mafia’, on which Missy Elliott would serve as the project’s lead producer. Following the renaming of her album came the first two buzz singles, one was the cartoonish ambulance-driven audio piece ‘Runnin’ Shit’, composed by Timbaland, and the other was ‘Mardi Gras’, an up-tempo Spanish-tinged piece. song, again produced by Timbaland, and featuring guest appearances from Missy Elliott and Lil’ Mo. At the time, no single had charted and ‘Bella Mafia’ was still in transit for release in late 2000, until the signing of her former Goldmind Inc. labelmate Torrey “TC” Carter, resulting in the postponement of not only Mocha’s album, but virtually all of the label’s other signees after throwing their full weight behind their new star. When TC’s single flopped, Mocha then prepared another single to get the expectations flowing again for her debut, and ‘I Know Whutcha U Like’ was released to DJs and radio, but like her previous efforts this failed to make an impact on the Billboard charts. after which she asked to be released from her contract. The end result of all this was that ‘Bella Mafia’ was not only shelved, but never really finished, and is therefore difficult to reconstruct because so few songs exist. In 2005 she released her two books “Cash Money” and “Concrete Jungle”, both under the author alias AJ Rivers, and in 2007 she recorded a second album of new material entitled ‘One Day At A Time’ which was released as a limited edition via her website, without album art. She retired from music shortly after its release and is now the owner of Mo’s Sweet Minis, a bakery in Richmond, Virginia, but for anyone who wants to hear that second album, featuring Virginia-based acts Mumeet Daddy and DJ Lonnie B., in addition sampled vocals from Kanye West, here it is, complete with new cover art to top it off.

01 Guys
02 Life’s A B. (feat. DJ Lonnie B.)
03 Making movements
04 million words
05 Haterz
06 Heart of mind
07 What a life
08 I Remember (feat. DJ Lonnie B.)
09 Pimpster
10 On my gravel
11 What’s Going On (feat. Mumeet Daddy)
12 Sugar (feat. Mumeet Daddy)
13 Mail call
14 Tanita
15 Ghetto Senorita (feat. Kanye West)