Biography

Recording artist/DJ Peanut Butter Wolf, aka Chris Manak, is the founder of independent label Stones Throw Records and the vinyl bar Gold Line Bar, which houses over 10,000 of his albums. Both are based in the same building in the Highland Park neighborhood of L.A. Originally from San Jose, CA, PB Wolf began DJing and making hip hop songs in his bedroom in 1984 at age 14. In the early 90s he and his best friend, the rapper Charizma, signed to Disney's Hollywood Records, but Charizma was tragically killed at age 20. In 1996, PB Wolf founded Stones Throw to release Bay Area underground hip hop music, including his own with Charizma. Wolf’s own debut LP My Vinyl Weighs a Ton, featuring Bay Area MCs and DJs, came out in 1999 and Big Shots, the unreleased album with Charizma, followed in 2003 as a 10 year tribute to his passing. A vinyl collector since his teens, Wolf has furthered the art form of DJing around the world while concurrently building Stones Throw into the label it is today. Its catalog includes hip-hop essentials by J Dilla (Donuts), Madvillain and Quasimoto, and funk/soul classics by Dam-Funk and Mayer Hawthorne. Its current roster illustrates Wolf’s broad taste in underground music including Sudan Archives, NxWorries, Mild High Club, Los Retros, Sofie Royer, Benny Sings, MNDSGN, and Automatic. He also stays busy remixing artists, both from Stones Throw and outside the camp.