Like Water for Chocolate

The cover of Like Water for Chocolate is a 1956 photograph by Gordon Parks, taken in Alabama during his work documenting life under segregation. It shows a young Black woman dressed for church, bending to drink from a fountain marked "Colored Only."

Writers have linked the image to the title: the fountain stands for the water and the woman for the chocolate. Some go further, reading it as a picture of how everyone drank the same water while Black Americans were made to reach it through separate and unequal facilities.

It was the first Common album cover without his own face, a choice that pointed the record towards bigger themes of race and history. Parks, the photographer and filmmaker behind Shaft, gave the album one of the most powerful images ever used on a rap sleeve. Like Water for Chocolate was released by MCA on 28 March 2000.