How a Small Los Angeles Label, Stones Throw Records, Shaped Hip-Hop for 30 Years

Stones Throw Records is a small Los Angeles label that has made music history for about 30 years, NPR reports. Chris Manak, the DJ and producer known as Peanut Butter Wolf, founded it in 1996. It became a key part of LA's underground music scene, connected to local places such as the open-mic workshop Project Blowed and the club night Low End Theory.

The label first got attention for music that Wolf made with his late partner Charizma and for "battle records," vinyl made mostly of samples for DJs, like the cult classic "Super Duck Breaks." Its path was set in 1999 when it signed the hip-hop group Lootpack, which included the producer Madlib. Madlib is a quiet, process-focused collector of vinyl records. By the mid-2000s he was joined by the masked rapper DOOM and the Detroit producer J Dilla, three flagship acts. In 2004, Madlib and MF DOOM released "Madvillainy," which became one of hip-hop's most celebrated albums, rising from a classic for those in the know to a poster on dorm room walls. Critic Sasha Frere-Jones wrote in The New Yorker that independent music can be like a graduate school, a safe place where artists can make a living and take their time.

Other people at the label shaped its taste, including general manager Eothen "Egon" Alapatt and art director Jeff Jank. Over the years it also signed the experimental artist Gary Wilson, the retro singer Mayer Hawthorne, Aloe Blacc and the musician Karriem Riggins. Interns became artists, too. Knxwledge formed the group NxWorries with Anderson .Paak, who later worked with Dr. Dre and Bruno Mars. The violinist Brittney Parks, known as Sudan Archives, combines looping with electronic R&B and has become a critics' favorite. NxWorries won the label its first Grammy in 2025.

Once a paradise for record collectors that helped turn turntablism and instrumental hip-hop into serious business, Stones Throw has grown into its own mix of soul, funk, R&B and electronic music. As the label has grown, and as originators like J Dilla and MF DOOM have passed away, its sound has become harder to pin down.