Earlier this week, the Beat Konducta himself, Madlib, was introduced to even more new fans thanks to his contributions on Kanye West’s “No More Parties in L.A.” Longtime Heads have been following the Oxnard, California producer and part-time MC for several decades and many incarnations. The man behind projects released under the names of Quasimoto, Jaylib, Madvillain, Jackson Conti, Liberation, Lootpack, and MadGibbs is a cornerstone artist in the development of the West Coast’s lush beat scene, but he also remains pretty mysterious and is less frequently interviewed than many of his contemporaries. As a flagship artist for Stones Throw Records, the label founded by Peanut Butter Wolf, he has worked with everyone from Erykah Badu to Freddie Gibbs and his backstory comprises much of the Stones Throw documentary Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton.

In a conversation with HipHopDX, Peanut Butter Wolf outlines the effect meeting Madlib had on his own music-production career, which he says nearly ground to a halt due to the sheer genius Madlib embodied. “When I met Madlib, it was like ‘am I gonna concentrate on my own music or am I gonna start concentrating on this person who I think is making better music than I am?’,” he shares. PB Wolf is also forthcoming about the details behind Madvillainy, the immensely celebrated 2004 collaboration between Madlib and MF DOOM, on which he says Madlib worked on two or three songs at a time. “It was more about just getting the songs from him than worrying about them being good or bad,” he says. “It was never, like, ‘ugh, this song sucks.'” The conversation is a rare look inside the mind of one of Hip-Hop’s most enigmatic artists.

Related: Madlib, DOOM, Blu & MED Knock the Door Down on a Groovy New Song (Audio)