Privately, Peanut Butter Wolf has always been a singer. It’s just that being the founder of the revered independent label Stones Throw Records is time consuming. For 28 years, the L.A.-based label has fearlessly released cutting-edge hip-hop, jazz, soul, and funk records, as well as innovative blends of those genres.

It’s been a slow burn to this moment, but on Dec. 6, Wolf will make his official debut as a lead singer in a covers project called Campus Christy. So determined to see this part of his musical life to fruition, Wolf uses his government name, Chris Manak. 

"I’ve always liked to sing," Wolf tells GRAMMY.com, adding that he sang a bit in a band with [former] label art director Jeff Jank. "We used to do  versions where I was singing. I always thought I sounded good, but when I heard the recordings after I was cringy. I was so off key. But then I started getting comfortable with it."

Campus Christy was developed in partnership with Brian Ellis, Egyptian Lover’s trusted co-producer and chameleonic studio wizard. The self-titled debut deftly moves through bombastic pop psych, space rock, twangy soft rock and psychedelic folk — the type of obscurities found through decades of crate digging. Even the most recognizable artist being covered, Neil Young, comes in the form of deep cut cover "Little Wing," the stripped-down opener from Young’s 1980 album Hawks & Doves.

If the cover choices have a unifying quality it’s that for Wolf, "people aren’t singing perfect. I think it’s more about having your emotion come through."

The last and only Peanut Butter Wolf album, My Vinyl Weighs A Ton — a collection of West Coast underground rappers over Wolf’s choice production — came in 1999, just three years after the DJ/producer founded Stones Throw. The subsequent years were spent proliferating the many faces of Madlib, experimenting with brilliant weirdos like James Pants, Vex Ruffin, and Koushik, introducing Mayer Hawthorne and DāM-Funk, and reintroducing the world to J Dilla and MF DOOM. At its heart, Stones Throw is a hip-hop label with a caveat from Wolf that the beauty of hip-hop is its acknowledgement of all musical forms and its ability to absorb those forms.

"I think that’s my mission statement at Stones Throw," he says, adding that that mission might not be particularly conscious. "Just to keep an open mind to different types of music. Be into groups and songs more than what genre it is."

Like all things Stones Throw, that ethos defines the Campus Christy record. Both projects are something of an extension of Peanut Butter Wolf’s personality: indifferent to genre, knowledgeable, but without snobbery — in a word, cool. From his home in Los Angeles, Peanut Butter Wolf spoke with GRAMMY.com about Campus Christy and the challenges of running an independent label for nearly 30 years.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Campus Christy was originally your high school garage band’s name. What sound were those kids after?

It was a covers band; I still have the tape. We only did one show in our friend’s garage. I remember we did "All Day and All Night" by the Kinks — it was in the ‘80s; there was a ‘60s revival. We were discovering music from the ‘60s, but also we liked a lot of hip-hop and new wave. I think we did New Order. We did Kraftwerk’s "The Model," We did Buffalo Springfield. Really just party music, I guess. We also did "The Killing Moon."

Was there a catalyst that got you going to do this project?

It was really during lockdown. A lot of people have lockdown records; I’m not promoting it as that. It was during a lonely time where I wasn’t around anyone except my wife. Like a lot of people, I thought my life was in danger and I did lose people during that time too. 

[At the same time], I was finding stuff that I didn’t know about on Discogs. The songs I was connecting to were the kind of bedroom-sounding loner pop. It ended up being more of those songs that I was choosing [for Campus Christy].

What keeps you open to taking those kinds of sonic risks in running a label when it might be easier or more logical to lean into proven successes or the familiar?

I’m just exposed to a lot of music. Instagram has helped out a lot too. People send me stuff, but I seek stuff out on my own. 

I have a bar now [Highland Park's Gold Line] for six or seven years; we have DJs seven nights a week. It’s a vinyl bar with 10,000 records from my collection — I just love going in there. There’s younger people who make music that go there. It’s a meeting ground for a lot of people in the area of town that I live in. That’s become my happy place. There’s a lot of artists that are on my label that I got to know them at that bar.

Do the roster additions of Kiefer, Jerry Paper, John Caroll Kirby and Sudan Archives in the last five years feel like a sea change in the sonic direction of Stones Throw? These artists are bringing jazz, indie rock, new age fusion jazz, and experimental R&B into the catalog.

I think one change is just having the [recording] studio [at the Stones Throw office in Highland Park]. A lot of the stuff is recorded there. I think that might give it a similar sound sonically.

There’s a significant difference between the electro/synth pop of James Pants and the oddball indie rock of Jerry Paper, but also an overlap. There’s a difference between Madlib’s jazz experiments as Yesterday’s New Quintet and Kiefer’s jazz piano over a drum machine, but also kinda not.

You get it. [Electronic jazz musician] John Carroll Kirby’s been great. We’ve done so many records with him; he just signed with us for more. We generally do three album deals with people. One thing I’m thankful for is when people come back and they don’t necessarily have to. [Filipino-American beatmaker] Mndsgn is one of my favorite artists. We just signed with him to do more records after his three albums were done. We do have a lot of new artists; we just signed this guy Lionmilk; I’d put the genius word there.

Who would you like to see get more attention on the label?

I’ve always said [Filipino-American producer and singer] Vex Ruffin. I think Vex has a lot of great stuff. It’s been a longer journey for him. Part of that is he does have a family. Responsibilities make it tough for him to tour. I always feel like everyone on the label should be more known than they are. Sudan Archives just toured with André 3000 and has a lot of attention.

You also have to remember every artist has their own wants and needs in terms of how many fans they want. Some artists are happy with just having a record come out. Sometimes as the label, I get a little too excited and want a person to do that and this, but what I should be doing is asking them what their goals are and what they want. Then it becomes my job to help them realize that.

Part of the Stones Throw story is one of significant loss. How did MF DOOM’s passing in 2020 hit you, given the prior losses of Dilla and Charizma?

I’ve had a lot of losses.

The first rapper that I ever worked with, this guy Miles McNeese [a.k.a. MC Cool Breeze]. He was this guy in high school that really wanted to be a rapper. He borrowed a drum machine from somebody and gave it to me; we started making songs together. Miles was someone who really believed in me first. We recorded a lot of songs together. He eventually went to the army. I lost touch with him for awhile and I found out he committed suicide. That was one of my first losses. 

Then I put out a record with this group Lyrical Prophecy and the lead rapper in that group died early. Those two guys were before losing Charizma. Obviously Charizma was a big one. When I found out about DOOM I was still in shock and disbelief. [His family] wanted privacy for a few months before telling anybody.

DOOM was always a good guy. It’s just hard when someone has so much more to give and they leave us. With Dilla and DOOM they both were at the height of their game.

In 2026, it will be 30 years of Stones Throw. Do you ever think about retirement?

I’ve thought about retiring all the way through it. [Laughs.]

It is my life. My friendships are the people that I work with. We hang out not just for music things. I don’t really see any reason to take a step back at this point. Through the years I’ve had people who want to buy the label. I do have some offers right now, but I haven’t even fielded it really.

Does it feel like whether you’re at the helm or not, you want the label to keep going?

Well, my daughter likes Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, so I don’t know how that would work out. [Laughs.] She is four. 

Blue Note is still around and they started in 1939, I think. Their first gold record — from what I read, I should look into this — was Nora Jones in the 2000s. [Editor's note: Come Away With Me was Blue Note’s first certified diamond record (2005).] The second one was a John Coltrane record from 1959. Our first gold album was Madvillainy, which just happened this year, 20 years after the release. The first gold singles are by Mild High Club, Los Retros, and Aloe Blacc is going to be the third one. Which is 20-something years later for Aloe Blacc.

You’re entering the golden years.

It is "the slow and steady wins the race" for me. The stuff that I like wasn’t always necessarily on top of the charts or even the top of the hip-hop charts. Main Source [album Breaking Atoms] was probably my favorite album of 1991 and it didn’t chart that high. DOOM’s KMD project didn’t chart at all. When we worked with him, it didn’t do that well for us either. It did better than most things on Stones Throw, but really at that point none of us thought it was going to reach another generation and become heralded as one of the most important hip-hop albums of all time.