"Five years ago, Gray started The Original Hip Hop Chocolates in his former home in L.A.'s Echo Park, hawking his handmade treats on hip-hop nights at Los Angeles clubs like The Mayan and The Virgil, and at shows featuring Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah, Killah Priest and Adrian Younge, and Venice Dawn.

For the thirty-eight-year-old, selling chocolate turntables is not all about making money. He wants people who consume his sweet creations to see it as a kind of “religious experience,” comparing it to the act of communion when Catholics consume a wafer symbolizing the Body of Christ.

Various products produced by Marcus Gray, founder of The Original Hip Hop Chocolates.
Just as Catholics gather to witness a wafer transform into the flesh of Christ, Gray sees his chocolate creations as the embodiment of hip-hop spirituality with the power to bring together lovers of the culture.

He believes hip-hop — its turntableism, b-boyin, graffiti, lyricism and beatboxing — is a belief system, a faith, that has been reflected in the culture’s films, photos, clothing and language. It makes sense to Gray that it should be reflected in chocolate too.

“What I am doing here is creating a sacred food for hip-hop,” he says. “My intention is to create something that people can put in their bodies, and at the same time reflect on what hip-hop means to them and their lives.”"