“What in the hell is a Peanut Butter Wolf?” is probably one of the first things you asked yourself when one of your friends started talking about this DJ/label-owner guy who discovered Madlib, Lootpack, Rasco, Encore, Breakestra, and a plethora of other artists and their aliases. The Wolf, known to his mom as Chris Manak, started out humbly making music with one of his good friends, Charizma, in the mid-’90s in the Bay Area. Their collaborative chemistry ended too soon, with Charizma passing away a few years later. This was the defining point in the Wolf’s life. With focus, PBW found his way in hip-hop, gathering emcees he respected into the Stones Throw fold, building a huge catalogue of formidable music not strictly relegated to the hip-hop genre. This mix CD is not to be confused with a “best of” album. It is, however a fluid palette representing the musical spectrum of Stones Throw, and a great jumping-off point to delve into any of the artists that pique your curiosity. It must have been a major undertaking to tackle more than a decade’s worth of work ranging from Dudley Perkin’s spoken word to Koushik’s ambient soul mixed with hip hop’s mad scientists, MFDoom and Madlib. The record highlights artists and tracks that normally could be lost in the shuffle. Sewn all together like pieces of a quilt, the project delivers a complete body of collective work and a better understanding of the music inside the Wolf’s head. It just makes sense. As an extra goodie, there’s a second disc containing lots of videos, live footage, and historical performances.