Chapter 1: Love, Pain & Forgiveness may be Syleena Johnson's major-label debut, but you wouldn't know it from the album's deep soul sound and hard-hitting tales of, well, love, pain and forgiveness.

"I never thought of it as particularly hard-hitting until people started saying, 'Wow, this is really bold'," Johnson said. "I'm an emotional person and the only way I know to write is from my own experiences."

The album, due May 15, is a song cycle about the kind of love so intense it includes the highest highs and lowest lows, the kind that's destined to go down in flames. But what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?

"That relationship was like the road to my pot of gold," said Johnson, who's now happily married. "It was a rocky experience, and it wasn't a real good one. But I learned a lot about myself, and that's one of the biggest points of the album for me."

Alongside songs such as "I'd Rather Be Wrong," about the thrill of forbidden fruit, "Baby I'm So Confused," about the strange mix of joy and pain that comes with love and "You Ain't Right," in which she finds out her man's cheating, are such slices of self-discovery as "All of Me" and "And Then ..."

Chapter 1: Love, Pain & Forgiveness is a more fully developed version of her first album, Love Hangover, which was released early last year on the independent Twinight label. "I was still working my way through the emotions when I made that album," Johnson said. "I needed more time to turn those emotions into better songs."

Johnson, 24, said she hopes that by sharing her experience listeners who might be going through a tough relationship will realize they're not alone. She found similar solace in such songs as Lauryn Hill's "Ex-Factor" and Al Green's "Love and Happiness."

"I love the Backstreet Boys and Destiny's Child, they're my favorite girl group of all time, but it makes me feel better that I can put out an album that tells a story, that really means something," Johnson said.

Johnson said she also wanted to avoid what she called the "overproduction" of most current R&B. Syleena is the daughter of Syl Johnson, who sang with Al Green at Hi Records in Memphis during the 1960s and '70s and had his own R&B hit with a 1975 version of "Take Me to the River." She grew up listening to everything from classic soul to Chicago blues.

She wanted to bring all those sounds into play on Chapter 1, from the percolating funk of "You Ain't Right," to the mournful, Ann Peebles-style moaning of "Ain't No Love," to the bluesy "He's Gonna Do You In," which features guitar work by Chicago blues legend Buddy Guy.

Johnson credited producer Bob Power, who's worked with D'Angelo and Erykah Badu, with helping her realize the sound she wanted. The album was originally set for a July 2000 release, but Johnson and her label felt something was missing. So she hooked up with fellow Jive artist R. Kelly, who wrote and produced the lead single, a ballad titled "I Am Your Woman."

"He writes really emotional songs, too, so it was a perfect combination," she said of Kelly's single, which is slowly climbing the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop singles chart.