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by
30 September, 2002@12:00 am
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Stones Throw is a model-consummate recording label (and trust me, I run my own). What once was merely Peanut Butter Wolf’s out-the-house San Francisco operation, shuffling out solid, consistent 12″s of the late Nineties, has honed in on a few highly successful formulas that have proven both musically and conceptually praiseworthy.

Upon the entrance of nuevo rap/soul/funk-renaissance man Eothen “Egon” Alapatt , the Stones Throw make-up manifested itself into new form. Reborn in the L.A. outskirts, Egon and The Wolf, aside workhorse and now-label definer producer Madlib, shifted the face of Stones Throw from one-off 12″s from the likes of Persevere and Encore and then-defining albums from onetime producer himself, PB Wolf, Rasco and the portal Lootpack album. A sensibility was being established and history was beginning to become cultivated.

A funky precedent was set some 3 years ago, as the label unfurled the first of what is nearing a next to astonishing 23 and counting roster of wildly assorted little black 7″ slabs. Captain Funkaho (also known as designer Jeff Jank) conjured up a wondrously psychedelic ode to Atari’s in “My 2600″. Record collectors were a buzz with the bold concept, the reinvented hip-hop 45, and soon many a label and artist would follow in years to come, releasing there own breeds of varying tiny-styles (labels like Puma Strut, Daptone and Sub-Level Epidemic come to mind). revisits, while not chronologically, Stones Throw’s superior run of the gamut in this still newly bustling 45 game. For the releases that followed the funky-ass Funkaho would each shoot in a different stylistic direction, brick by brick, creating what this compilation has achieved: ultimate variety (even if Madlib is half of the album).

The album highlights the many classics that arose from the dust kicked up by that strange Funkaho record (still one of the best). From the silly “Flowers” (albeit perhaps the most addictive slice throughout) by Declaime as Dudley Perkins, to Stones Throw original-testament, Charizma’s (R.I.P.) “Devotion ’92″, on to the equally defining Egon influence of reissued rarities by The Highlighters  “Poppin’ Popcorn” and the LA Carnival’s “Color”. Naturally, Madlib The Beat Conductor plays his part, as he so naturally does at this point in Stones Throw’s history, for now, he is essentially the music (at least when it comes to hip-hop) that makes Stones Throw. Having produced almost half of the 45′s releases to this date (as The Beat Conductor, Yesterday’s New Quintet, or for his Lootpack and Medaphoar associates), his presence is undoubtedly felt throughout. But this was Chris Manak’s vision in the first place, to have a jukebox of all dope-ass hip-hop 45′s. Well, this isn’t all hip-hop joints, its all types of music, its all from 45′s and its all from one label. It’s one more defining moment for an ever growing and altering imprint, a great compilation of material and simply, the ideal template for any jukebox, anywhere.

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