Apple Juice Break...Charizma & Peanut Butter Wolf

“I’m 18 years old and I’m into rap music, and I just love it.”

Charles Hicks AKA Charizma said those words nearly 20 years ago. The sincerity in his voice was undeniable and his words resonated with many young hip hop heads including myself. The young MC out of San Jose, California who had an affinity for sweets (ladies) and apple juice released one album with Chris Manak AKA Peanut Butter Wolf, Big Shots, for Hollywood Basics in 1993. Big Shots is a 16 track morsel of pure hip hop and sounds like nothing else coming out of the West Coast in that time period.
There have been many great MC/producer combinations throughout hip hop: Eric B. & Rakim, KRS-One & Scott La Rock, and DJ Premier & Guru. It is hard to put Charizma & Peanut Butter Wolf in the same sentence not because of the quality of music, but the brevity of it. Charizma was shot and killed sitting at a stoplight in a robbery attempt in December of 1993 in East Palo Alto. If tragedy had not struck, there is no telling what feats Charizma and Peanut Butter Wolf could have accomplished. Three years after Charizma’s passing Peanut Butter Wolf started Stones Throw Records. Charizma’s “My World Premier” was the first 12-inch Stones Throw ever released and today the label is considered one of the gold standards for new and innovative hip hop. Just like all the great MC/producer duos that came before them, Charizma and Peanut Butter Wolf had undeniable chemistry. The fun loving Charizma was a little quirky and brought out the wilder side of the mild mannered Peanut Butter Wolf. Bottom line, they were two teenage friends trying to make it big in the recently popularized genre of hip hop, a genre that did not pay much attention to the Bay Area at that time.

Their album, Big Shots, is just raw unadulterated hip hop. The subject matter switches between ladies, apple juice, and hip hop and then back to apple juice. The man rapped about apple juice like Too $hort rapped about pimping, with an absolute love and knowledge of it. Devin the Dude loves weed, Mac Dre loved thizzles, and Charizma loved his Martinelli’s apple juice in a round bottle.
It is rare to come across a hip hop album with such youthful energy and exuberance. They recorded their album in a $25 an hour studio with engineer, Peter Stanley, who looked more likely to work with Guns ‘N’ Roses than two aspiring hip hop artists. This especially comes across when Stanley, who did not like the idea of sampling drums of other artists, recorded himself playing the drums that Wolf would later use on the album. Other Stones Throw artists, including Madlib, have used those same drums.
If one song was chosen to convey the entire album it would have to be “Talk About a Girl.” Charizma raps over a masterfully crafted beat with striking pianos on a subject every high school kid could relate to, girls. Coming in at only 1 minute 20 seconds it reflects his career, so brief, yet so good.