HipHopDX: George Clinton & Aleon Craft Talk…
11.01.2012
Thanks to Jake and the good folks at HipHopDX for the love and support!
As he makes an authorized project with an Atlanta Rap veteran, Uncle George says that the lawsuits stemming from his music are not from him, and urges Lil Wayne that a phone-call could save him money.
George Clinton’s career is the stuff of novels; the stuff of biopics; the stuff of legends. From Doo-Wop and Motown to Parliament Funkadelic to P-Funk to Hip Hop (Techno coming soon), “Uncle George” has literally seen it all and breathed it all. Many artists make great songs. Clinton makes great genres. Half a century-in and the P-Funk All Star is still pushing the margins off the page and off the charts.
Aleon Craft grew up idolizing George Clinton. The Atlanta-native splashed in the mainstream early as part of Da Backwudz in the mid-2000s. Nearly five years later – sans record-label abandonment – he’s creating some of his freshest material and feeling better than ever about it. Taking a nod from his idol, he released Craft Singles in 2011 – an eight-track adventure through Craft’s own original genre, Solar-Hop.
In a sense, Aleon Craft and George Clinton teaming-up on Mothership: The Decatur Connection is a reunion of sorts. The two worked together on the Da Backwudz‘ Wood Work. But beyond the obvious, Craft and Clinton seem like kindred-spirits: two musical minds that only see the boundlessness of sound, separated by decades only.
HipHopDX spoke with Aleon Craft and George Clinton individually in this interview, discussing the origins of their collaboration, Clinton’s current legal battles over copyright issues and his memories of Afrika Bambaataa, Beyonce, Eminem, Dr. Dre when they were teenagers, and what surprises them both about Hip Hop.