Mr. Wolf speaks with Japan’s Black Files TV.

Jay-Z’s Life+Times documents the evolution of legendary Los Angeles-based hip-hop label Stones Throw, from its beginnings with the late Charizma to South African new kid Jonti, performing here during his first U.S. tour. Founder Peanut Butter Wolf speaks on the history of his label, sharing old studio footage of himself and Charizma.

Los Angeles OG and Stones Throw Records founder, Peanut Butter Wolf, stopped by Soul Assassins Radio and dropped a very rare set of music from the Stones Throw vaults… Be sure to tune in to Soul Assassins Radio on Sirius/XM Shade 45 every Monday Night at 7pm Pacific Standard Time…

Legendary DJ Peanut Butter Wolf stopped by Converse Rubber Tracks for a quick “Oh, Hello” and to celebrate the 15th anniversary of his seminal LA-label Stones Throw Records. Wolf chats about his passion for some of his new artists, how turntablism has changed, and some of the music that inspires him today. The track is “My World Premiere” by Charizma and Peanut Butter Wolf. To download performances from the Stones Throw 15th anniversary showcase, head to http://www.stonesthrow.com/.
]]> http://www.hiphopsite.com/2011/11/05/converse-rubber-tracks-oh-hello-peanut-butter-wolf/feed/ 0 http://www.hiphopsite.com/2011/07/18/peanut-butter-wolf-michael-rapaport-amoeba/ http://www.hiphopsite.com/2011/07/18/peanut-butter-wolf-michael-rapaport-amoeba/#comments Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:00:42 +0000 http://www.hiphopsite.com/?p=36377

The two collaborators from Beats, Rhymes, & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest speak on classic Tribe records and other gems.

Vegas heads, be sure to check out Saville Row at The Luxor for The Cut, which will happen every Wednesday night. No dress code, no cover, and Peanut Butter Wolf kicks things off. Consecutive dates will include Remix Artist Collective and DJ Spinna’s Soul Slam, celebrating the music of Michael Jackson and Prince.
]]> http://www.hiphopsite.com/2011/05/10/peanut-butter-wolf-spinning-in-vegas-tomorrow/feed/ 0 http://www.hiphopsite.com/2010/06/17/peanut-butter-wolf-q-tip-interview-with-skillz-video/ http://www.hiphopsite.com/2010/06/17/peanut-butter-wolf-q-tip-interview-with-skillz-video/#comments Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:44:45 +0000 http://www.hiphopsite.com/?p=17967

Skillz sits down with Peanut Butter Wolf and Q-Tip for this episode of Hip-Hop Confessional.

Stones Throw head Peanut Butter Wolf will continue to nurture his numerology obsession with the upcoming “999″ event, starting around September 9th, 2009. The event will see Wolf spinning 9 nights in a row, in 9 different California area codes, playing all 90′s music, from 9 different genres, ’til the meter reads “999″, as Canibus would say. Which night is the hip-hop set, Wolf?

This event, of course, is a follow-up to his 666, 777, and 888 events that happened in years previous (like we said, the man is obsessed.) As an added bonus, StonesThrow.Com has discounted several of their classic CD releases to $9.99 USD, through 9/9/09. Titles include:

Madvillain – Madvillainy (Madlib)
Lootpack – Soundpieces: Da Antidote (Madlib)
Yesterdays New Quintet – Angles Without Edges (Madlib)
Yesterdays New Quintet – Stevie (Madlib)
DJ Rels Madlib: – Theme For A Broken Soul (Madlib)
Monk Hughes Madlib: – A Tribute To Brother Weldon (Madlib)
Quasimoto – The Further Adventures of Lord Quas (Madlib)
Sound Directions – The Funky Side of Life (Madlib)
Dudley Perkins – A Lil’ Light (Madlib)
Percee P – Perseverance (Madlib)
Percee P – Perseverance: The Madlib: Remix (Madlib)
Breakestra – The Live Mix Part 2
Stark Reality – Now
Wildchild – Secondary Protocol
Charizma & Peanut Butter Wolf – Big Shots
Gary Wilson – Mary Had Brown Hair
Oh No – The Disrupt
Koushik – Be With
MED – Push Comes To Shove
Baron Zen – At The Mall
Baron Zen – At The Mall Remixes
Madlib: – Beat Konducta: Movie Scenes, Vol. 1-2
Dudley Perkins – Expressions
Roc C – All Questions Answered
Compilations:
The Funky 16 Corners
Jukebox 45s
Super Duck Breaks: The Saga
Stones Throw: Ten Years
The Third Unheard: Connecticut Hip-Hop 1979-1983

Check out www.stonesthrow.com for more information. – DJ Pizzo

“This Michael Jackson video tribute mix was recorded live from the DJ mixer during PB Wolf’s VJ set @ the Echoplex in Los Angeles. It was prepared and performed a few hours after hearing the news of his passing on 6/25/09 and is in NO WAY COMPREHENSIVE of all of Michael’s brilliant work. The show which also featured Daedelus, was for the launch of Friends Of Friends. This is part 3 of 3.”

With PB Wolf’s entry into the Michael Jackson tribute mixes, he takes a different approach by mixing videos together, including the ultimate sell-out clip of MJ altering the lyrics to “Billy Jean” to peddle Pepsi. Ah, the 80′s. - DJ Pizzo

Rappers have been making video game references for years. Biggie immortalized the two major game consoles of the 90s with his line, “Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, when I was dead broke man I couldn’t picture this.” Thirteen years later, the relationship between hip hop and video games has developed an even tighter bond. Everyone from Madden to Tony Hawk have included hip hop tracks in their games, but no game publisher has gone as far as 2K Sports, who borrowed an essential aspect of hip hop, the mixtape, to promote their products and flaunt their soundtracks. The first installment was arranged by Decon Media & Okay Player with the NBA2K6 soundtrack, followed by last year’s NBA2K7 soundtrack produced by Dan the Automator. For the 2008 game line-up, 2K called on west coast heavyweight Peanut Butter Wolf to handle the selection duties. Somebody at the 2K office must have been feeling the Chrome Children mixes from earlier this year, because B-Ball Zombie War follows the same format of those albums: a who’s who of Stones Throw with no particular method to the madness. That’s okay though, because Stones Throw is currently sitting on some of the biggest names in indie hip hop, and this latest mix furthers their reputation as the West Coast’s most innovative label.

Guilty Simpson’s solo debut is so close you can taste it, so in the meantime, Detroit’s realest emcee delivers two new tracks produced by the late J Dilla to help fuel the hype. “Make it Fast” finds Guilty spitting over chopped strings reminiscent of “Tippi-Toes” by the Meters. Mr. Simpson spits like an experienced OG, with lines like, “I’ll stomp your bitch ass out, and wouldn’t scuff a kick.” His other track, “Mash’s Revenge” features MF Doom, and uses the instrumental “Mash” from J Dilla’s “Donuts” album. The understated drums allow Guilty and Doom to flaunt their typical tricks with minimal distraction.

Two Dilla tracks not enough for you? You’re in luck, as one of the heaviest tracks on B-Ball Zombie War is “Lightworking”, which is a remix of “Lightworks”-also from J Dilla’s Donuts album-with new verses from New York legends Q-Tip and Talib Kweli. Fans of Donuts are going to lose their shit when they hear the Abstract and Kweli freak this psychedelic scorcher. The final Dilla contribution is a remix of Quasimoto’s “Hydrant Game”, which trumps all previous versions.

Another instrumental track that gets revamped with lyrics is Oh No’s “Action” from his recent Dr. No’s Oxperiment. It was evident that it wouldn’t be too long before Oh No started releasing vocal versions of these tracks; they are just too damn fresh to remain word-less.

Madlib offers four tracks under four different aliases, with mixed results. His best, perhaps, is his debut as the Supreme Team with Karriem Riggins on the track “See”. They use a vocal sample of the word “see” to end each line in the fashion of the third verse of “Emcee” by J-Live (on his All of the Above album). Madlib’s solo tracks “The Wigflip” and “Trouble” simply sound like throwaways from past Beat Konducta projects.

Aloe Blacc’s track “Find A Way” is certified bananas. This self-produced gem finds Blacc crooning his way through a buttery smooth soundscape of horns and strings, and I hope this is an indicator of future endeavors.

The second half of this album contains some songs that could barely be categorized as music. Every aspect of CX Kidtronik and Tchaka Diallo’s “Big Girl, Skinny Girl” is annoying. In 2008, it’s hard to imagine anybody actually wanting to listen to these cheesy rhymes over pseudo-break production. The same goes for DJ Babu and Niko’s “Now You Know” which is a bland Babu production featuring a 4-year-old rhyming about being 4 years old. Listeners might feel outside of the loop with some inside joke at Stones Throw, but either way it’s curious as to why PB Wolf included these tunes on this project. Aside from those disasters, however, B-Ball Zombie War is the best Stones Throw Comp thus far, and provides a genuine look inside one of the most eclectic record labels in the game. – Chris Seeger

    Just like the first Chrome Children Project, this album acts as a brief introduction to the majority of the Stones Throw roster. The big names get just as much shine as the lesser-knowns, with everyone except Madlib getting just one track to show and prove. The production styles go way beyond hip-hop, so all you boom bap traditionalists should stop reading now and go check if we have any Gang Starr re-releases. Most of the songs could be classified as hip hop, but there’s also plenty of funk, jazz and break beats to keep things moving.

    This is one of the few Stones Throw mixes that doesn’t feature Madlib on nearly every production credit. His two instrumental tracks “Selah’s Children” and “Chrome Dreams” sound like the last 100+ beats he’s released under the Beat Konducta moniker, but this shit is still farm fresh. His only other appearance is on the Jazzistics track “Marcus, Martin, and Malcolm” which features the blunted abstract jazz sound that Stones Throw has championed in recent years.

     Speaking of getting blunted, the psychedelic scorcher of a beat that Four Tet drops on “Money Motivated Movements” is tailor made for those days the forecast in your dorm room is ‘extra cloudy with a chance of the munchies’. Just make sure you aren’t so stoned you miss the lyrics from Detroit’s man of the moment, Guilty Simpson, who drops raw heat as usual. More street talk can be heard on Roc C’s “Living for the City” which features production from Oh No. Throwing current trends to the wayside, Oh No lets the beautiful vocal sample play at a reasonable speed, and I couldn’t be happier. If I hear one more chipmunk diva Kanye knock-off I’m going to the trunk to pull them thangs out.

     On the funk tip, James Pants and Gary Wilson each deliver some uptempo loveliness with “Murder” and “Soul Traveling” respectively. Chocolate Star (aka Gary Davis) finds his groove on “Stay With Me” which features some nice key work and belongs on all of your late night playlists. (Not the one with Jodeci on it, the one you listen to when you’re falling asleep.) Meanwhile, J.Rocc takes a break from slicing and dicing funk 45′s to drop “Bubbha’s Dance”. The walking bassline is f-f-f-fresh and he hits us in a soft spot by cutting in a Dilla vocal sample during the bridge. Other notable cuts include Baron Zen’s “Theme” and Clifford Nyren’s “Keep Running Away”.

     Some of you might be upset that Stones Throw’s biggest star, MF Doom, didn’t make the album, but if you are dying for new material from the super villain, he’ll probably release three full lengths before Christmas. This mix is far more consistent than the first Chrome Children release, reinforcing Stones Throw’s role as a trendsetter in left-field urban music. If you react to jazz like the rednecks in Talladega Nights, this album is not for you, but if your record collection goes beyond hip hop this is a welcome addition to your stash.

While independent record labels are a dime a dozen these days, Peanut Butter Wolf has come up with a formula that works.  Earning his stripes as DJ and producer first, the San Jose native founded Stones Throw Records in 1996.  Blessing the hip-hop community with releases like the Champion Sound and Madvillany – franchise player Madlib’s collaborations with Jay Dee and MF DOOM, respectively – Stones Throw has developed into an underground mecca, full of talented artists and void of compromise for commercial acceptance.  For the close of the year, the label issued Stones Throw 101, a DVD/CD set that chronicles the label’s first eight years and 100 releases.  In an interview with HipHopSite.com, Peanut Butter Wolf talks about managing an indie record label, the 101st release, and future plans.

HipHopSite: First off, tell me about your upbringing and how you got into hip-hop.

PBW: Well, depending on how far you want to go back, I really got into buying records and listening to music in 1979, when I was nine years old.  I was buying a lot of 45′s, and 12 inches here and there when I could afford them.  Ironically, that was the same year that hip-hop first started, at least on record.  Before that, you would probably have to live in the Bronx to find out about it.  I was buying Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash, and Curtis Blow, but at the same time I was buying Cameo, Parliament, and stuff like that.  I knew they were rapping on those songs, but to me, “Double Dutch Bus” (by ’80s rocker Frankie Smith) was a rap song too; I didn’t have a feel for the difference yet, I was a young kid.

It was in the early 80′s that I realized that it was a full culture, with the elements.  From ’82 to ’83, that’s when break dancing took off in terms of seeing it in TV commercials.  You would see a Gladys Knight and the Pips video with people breaking, even though it wasn’t a hip-hop song, it was middle class soul music (laughs);well not middle class, but older.  And of course “Beat Street” (came out), and I heard about “Wild Style” but I couldn’t see it, because they didn’t have it in the theaters in the area I lived in.  It came out on video the next year, probably about ’84, and it was then that I knew that (hip-hop) was what I really into.  And then you have Run-DMC, and hits like “Sucker M.C.’s.”  When “Sucker M.C.’s” came out, it wasn’t like anything out there; it was just a drum beat and hardcore rapping.

HipHopSite: You founded Stones Throw in ’96; what made you decide to start up your own label, as opposed to just doing your thing in the biz here and there?

PBW: I really wanted to start a label when I was 15.  Recently, I was cleaning out my closet, and I found this report I did back in high school, and it was talking about how I was going to start my own record label when I grow up.  I guess that was deep in my subconscious, ‘because I don’t even remember writing it.  In the early 90′s, I was more or less a recording artist: I was doing beats for different people, and I started heavily working with Charisma, who was an MC from around the way in San Jose, Calif., where I grew up.  That didn’t work out; he passed away, and the label that we were on, Hollywood Basics, went under as well.

I was at a crossroads in my life, and I had to figure out what I was going to do.  I took some time off, and eventually I started making music again.  I put out this record “Peanut Butter Breaks” on my own label, and from there I was doing stuff for compilations.  At the same time, I did work for Southpaw Records, which was a division of Delicious Vinyl.  Through all these experiences, I always found that as the artist, I was doing a lot of the promoting too.  I was sending the records to the DJs, and sending it to the magazines, so I just felt like I should really start my own label.  I was DJing on the radio, I was writing for magazines like The Bomb—a local hip-hop magazine in the Bay area at the time—and I worked as a record distributor, I worked at record stores before that.  I felt like I was well-rounded enough to take it upon myself and do it.

HipHopSite: This new DVD documents the label’s first 100 releases.  What kind of approach did you take to putting the whole thing together?

PBW: Videos are something we’ve done since the beginning of the label, and the goal was to get them played, but I think MTV and BET really limited their music programming.  I guess our stuff is really to the left for a lot of that.  So here I was with all these music videos, and when I would tell people I knew….even reading on the message boards, people who were fans of Stones Throw hadn’t even seen our videos.  So I was like, “Damn, we’re almost at our 100th release, so let’s put out a DVD with all our videos, and some other footage we’ve had through the years.”  I also wanted to do a mix CD of the records; you can’t put 100 records on a CD, but some of my favorite moments, trying to include as many artists as possible.

HipHopSite: What was it like for you, going back to the late 90′s to get material for this?  Looking back then, and looking where you guys are at now.

PBW: One thing I did notice is that we had a lot of alien themes in our videos (laughs), which isn’t really something surprising.  Madlib believes in aliens, the same way that Q-bert does.  It seems to me that there’s a lot of real talented individuals who believe in them, to the point that they feel like they’re aliens as well.  We’d give songs to directors and give them as much information as we could about the artist, and they’d come with a storyline.  But regardless of it being old or new, the videos had more to do with what kind of music we were putting out.  Working with people who would understand those artists-Andrew Gura, he’s done a lot of our videos, and he’s a fan of the label-everyone we work with has come to us and said they liked our music, and they have a great idea for this song.  For the Madvillan video, (director) James Reitano came over my house, and we listened to the whole Madvillan album from start to finish before it came out.  We decided that the “All Caps” song was the best to do an animated video for, because it was up-tempo, and kind of crazy-sounding.

HipHopSite: How well do you think the DVD parallels with the rest of the world, specifically hip-hop, for the eight-year span that it covers?

PBW: Some of the videos that we’ve done, I’ve seen commercial videos come with similar concepts.  I won’t put any names out there, and I don’t know if it was that their director thought of the same idea that our director did or if they actually did both videos.  The Dudley Perkins (“Money”) video did get some BET play, and then an artist came out with a video real similar afterwards, and the same thing happened with Wildchild.  All the video directors kind of watch each other’s stuff and get ideas from them.

HipHopSite: What are some of your personal favorite moments on the DVD and mix CD?

PBW: I don’t think I’ma have a good answer for that (laughs), what else can we talk about?  With the mix CD, I tried to make it a combination of songs that people really latched onto when they came out and some songs that people hadn’t really heard as well that I thought were important.  I wanted to give songs a second chance to be heard that got slept on the first time around.

That goes for the DVD too.  One of my favorite parts is the footage of Stark Reality; they’re an old jazz, kind of psychedelic rock children’s music group that we put out an album with.  Egon, who runs the label with me, he went out and found that footage.  The guy Monty Stark, from Stark Reality, hadn’t seen it in thirty years.  Just the musicianship on something like that they did it live on a TV show it’s just a whole different era.  It represents Stones Throw just as much as anything on there.  Seeing LA Carnival, another group from the 70s, getting them reunited and having them play for a live audience, seeing the reaction from these young kids for an older group; these are the types of things that keep me going as well, along with breaking new artists.

HipHopSite: A lot of people associate Stones Throw with Madlib’s work, but as the DVD shows, you have a really eclectic roster.  How do you decide if someone is Stones Throw material?

PBW: Like you said, Madlib is a big part of the label now.  He grew up with a lot of talented people in Oxnard (Calif.), and I think his talent rubbed off on them and vice versa.  I think it’s important to be involved in a community where everybody’s ideas are bouncing off each other.  Me living in LA, there are a lot of really good DJs in LA, it’s like healthy competition with them.  That’s why a lot of our roster is from Oxnard, whether it be Oh No, Wildchild, Medaphor, or Dudley Perkins.

We go outside of that as well; Stones Throw has kind of been a hobby for me, where if I want to work with MF Doom, or Madlib does, we’ll call Doom and ask him what he thinks of it.  That’s how both the Madvillan and the Jaylib projects came about.  Just contacting another artist that we really like, wherever they live; Doom lives in Atlanta, Jay Dee was living in Detroit, he’s actually living in LA right now.  Percee P lives in the Bronx, we’re doing an album with him; and Koushik, he’s from Canada.

HipHopSite: But how do you fit so many different artists under one cohesive label like that?

PBW: It’s tough.  The Jaylib and Madvillan things worked out well, because we appreciated each other’s music.  Even in terms of having DJ shows and MC shows, it’s hard to put a fan on the bill, because with the DJs the focus is on the crowd dancing, and with the MCs it’s more of fans facing the stage and watching a performance.  It makes live shows difficult sometimes, but more or less, all the artists I work with feel like they’re a family by being artists on the label.  Dilla will work with artists on Stones Throw: he’s doing stuff with Medaphor and Oh No, where he may not consider it as much for other people.  He definitely appreciates Medaphor and Oh No as MCs, so that’s most important.

HipHopSite: Let me ask you something about yourself.  Recently, you’ve shied away from actual production to focus on the label and DJ shows.  Will you ever go back to doing production?

PBW: It’s tough, because I gave up doing beats like four or five years ago; I just wasn’t really into it as much anymore.  For me, digging is really a chore; back in the days, that was what was fun about making beats, but with all the compilations out and stuff, it turned into something different.  I don’t have any rules where you get your music from, but I didn’t want to just be going through the motions; I didn’t want to do something unless it’s really in my heart, and it became more in my heart to promote other people’s music.  I get teased now and then by some producer friends of mine, like “when are you going to start making beats again?” If it happens, it’ll happen, but it’s not something I’m going to lose sleep over or anything.  I’m happy with where I am, contributing to music in the ways that I do.

HipHopSite: You guys have had eight years, and 100 releases.  How do you think that you guys have sustained for so long?

PBW: I think it’s because we built it so slowly.  When I started the label, I was doing only vinyl, or predominantly vinyl.  I put vinyl out for television shows, and break beat albums for DJs and stuff, and eventually got my feet wet with releasing CDs.  We didn’t really start off with an office or a big staff; I was doing a lot of it on my own, outsourcing, keeping the costs low until the name was big enough.  Still, “Stones Throw” isn’t a household word at all, it’s more known in the DJ community.  I think that last year was a really good year for us, and that we still haven’t reached our best year in terms of what we’re releasing and stuff, so I’m looking forward to the next few years to see what happens.

HipHopSite: That was my next question; what’s up next for you guys?

PBW: One big thing is trying to develop the artists that we’re working with; a lot of times, with Madlib in particular, he likes to do an album and challenge himself with something different the next time around.  That’s why you saw the Yesterday’s New Quintet album, where he’s playing all the live instruments, or the DJ Rels album, where it’s all electronic, almost craftwork style music.  But we all realize people are still waiting on the follow-up to the Quasimoto album, so that’s finally coming out next year, after a five year hiatus.  I’m looking forward to doing another Jaylib album or Madvillan album, but at the same time, we do have new artists like Medaphor, who’s been on these other artists’ albums but never had his own album.  Then we have Percee P, who’s recorded for years but never had his own album, he’s like the oldest rookie, like the Satchel Paige of hip-hop.  Koushik is more of a psychedelic rock artist, but he’s rooted in hip-hop as well.  There’s a lot; we basically have the next two years mapped out already.  If someone came to me today saying they had a great new album they wanted to do, we’d be struggling to find out where we’d fit it in the roster.

HipHopSite: That’s about it; is there anything else I didn’t mention that you’d like to talk about?

PBW: Hmm….can I say something bad about George Bush?

HipHopSite: (laughs) Go ahead.

PBW: (laughs) I’m kidding, I’m cool.  Just thanks for giving me the time.

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.

My Vinyl… has the variety of a hearty Thanksgiving dinner, utilizing much of the Stones Throw roster along with many of the nations top notch turntable manipulators. The raw and exposed “In Your Area” (featuring Planet Asia) pops the cork off the full length adventure, followed by the lead single tracks “Styles Crews Flows Beats” (featuring The Lootpack) & “Casio” (PB Wolf alongside Beat Junkie Babu). The variations in that 10 minutes alone knock many of 98′s extended players out da box like skelly. Rasco’s outing on “Hold Up” proves just as tight as the better joints from Time Waits For No Man, also the inclusion of last year’s “Run The Line” (which also contains a nice contribution from DJ Q-Bert) makes for additional Rasco/PB Wolf ear candy.  Kazi & Encore both rip the mic appart on “Breaks Em Down” and “Mobbin’” respectively on two of the more rugged tracks.

Turntablistically speaking, the album has a nice mixture of straight up ISP-fashion tracks and more melodically driven instrumental joints (a la PB Wolf’s effort on The Return of The DJ album). “Phonies” is an interesting dab of both, flipping samples from A Tribe Called Quest, James Brown , King Sun and others to make for quite a pleasant listen. While “Tale Of Five Cities” pairs 5 different grandmasters together for a 8 and half minute gangbang of the tables and their wax. “Theme From The Peanut Butter Wolf” also scores points for originality and naughty humor.

It is alright to admit that we’ve been let down by many of our past hip-hop heroes. And even though at times it seems like the late-90′s independent new wave seems to be faltering, we can count our lucky stars that there is a Peanut Butter Wolf looking out of us each time. Big up.