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Never thrown offPeanut Butter Wolf talks about Stones
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In the increasingly commercialized world of hip hop, very few indie labels can compete with the longevity, influence and innovation that L.A.’s Stones Throw has offered rap heads and crate-diggers. With releases like J Dilla’s Donuts and Madlib’s Beat Konducta series, Stones Throw is now known as a nest of experimentation where hip hop, soul, funk and jazz meet to create classic material. Chris Manak, aka Peanut Butter Wolf, already had this vision in mind when he founded the label back in 1996. The goal was simple—“To be free to put out whatever appealed to me as a listener and whatever I wanted to play as a DJ,” says Manak. “But if you really wanna look at Stones Throw’s infancy, I guess it dates back to ’85, when I was a sophomore in high school. I wrote one of those term papers about ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ and I said I wanted to own a record label. Music was always a part of my life. I started buying records at the age of nine, spending all my money on them. I did radio, I did press, I worked in record stores and for a record distributor. “At the time, there were a lot of talented people in the Bay Area but all the attention was on G-funk and gangsta rap. There wasn’t much exposure for that East Coast sound. I was on a major with Charizma [with whom he was in a group], but after he passed away, I decided to go down the indie road and it led to eventually starting Stones Throw.” Over a decade and dozens of releases later, the label has become a staple of alternative hip hop. Two of its most recent signees—James Pants, purveyor of the “fresh beat,” and singer Mayer Hawthorne—are part of the tour that is making a stop at les Saints this Saturday. They are also part of Wolf’s biggest reward for overseeing Stones Throw—“Being on tour with my friends and seeing them grow and succeed as artists and people. Seeing it all in action.” WITH JAMES PANTS AND MAYER |
