The 808 Experiment: Vol 3 came out on Tuesday, and for the third time (in 3 years) it featured Aleon Craft.

Aleon Craft ft. Grip Plyaz & Tuki – “My Girlfriend”
&
Scar ft. El Prez & Aleon Craft – “Smoke & Ride Out”

We will be performing BOTH at the release party on Saturday!

Thanks to the Space Cadets for being the funkiest band on the planet and Artemous Jenkins for coming through and filming the event.

The support for the project has been AMAZING, thanks to many thousands of people who have downloaded the project and shown love!

Happy 420 good people. Big ups to the homies Grip and Tuki!

This is the last leak off The 808 Experiment: Vol 3, which is dropping on Tuesday, April 26th.

Here is a little taste of what went down this weekend at Star Bar for the Mothership Decatur release party…we have a full video that will be released (and photos) in the next couple days.

Thanks to EVERYONE who made it out, we had a blast.

Read on as Aleon Craft discusses his new mixtape Mothership Decatur, which is “presented as an album,” including appearances by Nappy Roots, Backbone from Dungeon Family, FKi and more. Plus, he talks about record stores, the Star Bar and Decatur.

How would you describe your sound and style of music?

If I had to describe it, I would say it’s a fusion of funk, classic R&B, alternative rock and whatever we can mix in the pot of gumbo. I’m just a fan of music, so all of those aspects of what I like end up in my music, like how I was raised on music and what music moves me personally.

As a fan of music, who or what inspires your sound. After hearing Mothership Decatur, there are all kinds of styles in there. Did one of the songs on the mixtape break out into a full-blown gospel sound?

(Laughs) yeah, we took them to church! But we were raised traditional Baptist, so it just comes out, but other people who don’t know me or that sound’ll call it bluegrass (laughs)! That’s church music where I come from. I was raised on a lot of funk music, like George Clinton and Bootsy, and I was around when Rev. James Cleveland was doing their thing and we were into it. Not to say that I do gospel music, but the music is influential. The vibe of everybody, from the gospel to George Clinton, you can feel it in my music.

You talk about being from Decatur a lot in your music, and there’s always the notion, especially in hip-hop, that Decatur is known as a bad place. Is Decatur really like that? How do you look at Decatur in your music?

Decatur is an interesting place. You got, quote-unquote, niggas everywhere, you got bad apples everywhere. It’s a good place though. It’s more suburban than Atlanta, but it’s still a good place. Good people out there, and you see a lot of things, man! (Laughs) you see a lot of crazy things. Other than that, Decatur really cool, interesting people and really cool. A lot of my music comes from there, what I seen, what I do. Things that I learned on the daily, and things that learned when I started reading more and finding out about who we are as a people, like who why we do the things we do. It’s all about the learning experience.

With the new project Mothership Decatur, in what way would you describe the content and lyrics that folks should look out for?

There’s content on there that can help heal, help someone that’s going through something. It’s content on there that I deal with every day, and if I can show that to somebody and tell them what it is, I do that. It’s content on there that teaches certain things that people might not have thought about, or at least bringing things to light. It’s a lot of good music on there! Like I said earlier, I just want people to feel good when they hear it because it’s fun, intellectual, sad (but it’ll still feel good, he emphasizes), and it reminds them of the good ol’ days.

What all will go down at the Star Bar Saturday during your release party? Is it just a party or will you be performing?

Oh yeah, we’re going monkey nuts!

Also, that day will be Record Store Day, and with several of them in Little Five Points I gotta ask which ones you go to the most?

I don’t really get to go to record stores often, I mainly buy my music from iTunes, I’m an iTunes dude. But when I do go, I go to Wax N’ Facts the most. I won’t lie though, most of the time if I want something I go to Best Buy (laughs), just to be real with you.

That’s ok! Now will your new one be available as a hard copy or is it just digital?

Right now it’s on the Internet, but we will definitely have some hard copies of it at the show… Most the time, it’s hard for me to go in a record store because when I go in there I’m sure to spend way more money that I wanted to spend anyway because I’ll see something else I want!

Yeah, record stores are notorious for having that band t-shirt you’ve always wanted or some cool poster.

Yeah, or some little jewel in there.

Getting back to the show, why pick the Star Bar out of the many music venues?

The sound system is great, the people who work there are great, it’s just a good venue. They show love when we come in there. They don’t really do a lot of hip-hop over there, but they let us come through there. I guess it’s because we don’t tear the club up. I mean, we do tear it up, like we burn the roof down, but we don’t bring a bunch of riff-raff. It’s just good vibes when we come through.

Linking up with the west coast homie on his latest project…shout out to Nathan at DJbooth!

DL & LISTEN

01. DJ Skee Intro
02. Boarding Pass
03. The Feeling (ft. Julius Francis)
04. When We Were Kings (cuts by DJ Critical Hype)
05. If I Don’t Make It
06. Guillotine
07. City Never Sleeps (ft. Jenny Bapst)
08. The Night Is Young (ft. Jason Caesar)
09. Fantasy
10. Let’s Ride DJ Skee Intro
11. Let’s Ride (ft. Playboy Tre & Rittz)
12. Get Down (ft. Aleon Craft)
13. I Love You (Kinda)
14. Bo Jackson
15. Have Mercy
16. When No One Cares
17. Lullaby
18. The Arrival (ft. Ahmad)
19. DJ Skee Outro

Read more: http://www.djbooth.net/index/mixtapes/entry/shane-eli-icdb/#listen#ixzz1JX61Kj6W
on DJBooth.net

DL & LISTEN

Aleon Craft has been in the studio for the past 3 months, with SMKA, working on his follow-up project to The Stargazing Soundtrack. The Stargazing Soundtrack was Aleon Craft’s debut project and received both critical acclaim and national attention.

Mothership Decatur is the sonic progression of Aleon Craft, the solo artist, and the last mixtape before his debut album, Solar-Hop Chronicles (Date TBA). Aleon Craft’s Mothership Decatur is more Solar-Hop funk for your ear drums. Solar-Hop contains elements of Funk, Soul, R&B and Southern Hip-Hop, which are the influences that make Aleon Craft the artist he is today.

DL: Aleon Craft – Mothership Decatur hosted by DJ Smallz

TRACKLIST
1) Aleon Craft – “The Arrival” (Prod. Sol Messiah)
2) Aleon Craft – “Make It Out” (Prod. SMKA)
3) Aleon Craft – “Donkey Kong” (Prod. SMKA)
4) Aleon Craft ft. G-wiz & Heavy Slim – “On the Air” (Prod. DPMG)
5) Stargazing Intermission 1
6) Aleon Craft – “Look Twice” (Prod. SMKA)
7) Aleon Craft – “Yoga Flame” (Prod. SMKA)
8 ) Aleon Craft – “Ball of Confusion” (Prod. SMKA)
9) Stargazing Intermission 2
10) Aleon Craft – “Auto Pilot” (Prod. Roundtable Kings)
11) Aleon Craft ft. Backbone – “Ghetto Dope (Prod. SMKA)
12) Aleon Craft – “No Strings Attached” (Prod. SMKA)
13) Aleon Craft – “Places to Fly” (Prod. SMKA)
14) Aleon Craft ft. Nappy Roots & C# Sharp – “Simplistic Expression” (Prod .SMKA)
15) Stargazing Intermission 3
16) Aleon Craft – “Collards” (Prod. SMKA)

Executive Produced by SMKA
Produced by 808 Blake & Justin Padron of SMKA
Written by Aleon Craft
Additional Production by Sol Messiah, Roundtable Kings & DPMG
Engineered by Vance Vexed, Cameron Padron & Robert McDaniel of SMKA
Mastered by Robert McDaniel
Background Vocals Provided by Richelle Brown
Guitar Provided by 7King of SMKA, David Feldman & Parker Smith
Bass Provided by Chris Price & Preston Crump
No Shit Taken by Mike Walbert of SMKA

When the homies Sean Falyon & Playboy Tre asked me to headline the 4/20 RED CUP event @ Smith’s…I couldn’t turn that down. We are gonna burn the house down!

Did I mention, FREE DRINKS!!!

The release of Aleon Craft – Mothership Decatur hosted by DJ Smallz is a little more than a week away…and today we are excited to be leaking the single off the mixtape. If you want to listen to the WHOLE project before it is released then come to the listening session on Thusday, April 7th @ City of Ink, in Atlanta (details/flyer below). The release party is on Sat, April 16th @ the Star Bar…and is going to be one of the livest hip-hop shows EVER!

DL: Aleon Craft – “Make It Out” (Prod. SMKA)

Photos from the Kendrick Lamar & Aleon Craft show @ Masquerade.

Photos courtesy of Desmond Dickerson