Stones Throw Playlist
- Text by Alex King
- Photography by Stones Throw
“I look up to every artist I’ve worked with,” says Stones Throw Records founder Peanut Butter Wolf. “It’s easy for me to develop friendships with people I idolise and worship, and that’s how I run the label.”
New documentary Our Vinyl Weighs A Ton pieces together the colourful history of his revered LA independent label. Over the past eighteen years, Wolf has provided sanctuary for a rabble of lost kids who couldn’t find a home elsewhere, putting out music from a kaleidoscope of underground artists from Madlib to Dam-Funk, Jonwayne to the late J Dilla. With rare access and input from the likes of Talib Kweli, Snoop Dogg and Beastie Boy Mike D, as well as a bucketload of unseen archive footage, the film looks set to go down as a priceless document of musical history.
“In thirty years I want to see Stones Throw in either the 100 dollar bin or the ninety-nine cent bin,” Wolf says, “not the five dollar bin.”
To celebrate the film’s release, we’ve got three classic music videos from Stones Throw’s impressive back catalogue.
Quasimoto – Low Class Conspiracy
Quasimoto is Madlib’s sinister alter ego and only appears after he consumes unhealthy quantities of chocolate shrooms. In this video for Low Class Conspiracy, the sinister urges of the producer’s twisted imagination are brought to life.
Madvillian – All Caps
The Madvilliany LP – a collaboration between MF Doom and Madlib – remains Stones Throws biggest success to date. The partnership between two giants pushing at the boundaries of hip hop still sounds fresh nearly a decade later.
J Dilla – Last Donut of the Night
Stones Throw provided the environment for visionary producer J Dilla to put out arguably the best material of his career and his tragic death at just 32 deeply affected everyone at the label. Our Vinyl Weighs A Ton is in part a tribute to the late James Dewitt Yancey and celebrates his huge contribution to independent music.
Read more in Huck 44 – The Tommy Guerrero Issue.
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