Myone, Myth and Symbolyc One (S1), make up The Strange Fruit Project — three MCs from Waco, Texas on their latest musical offering, entitled The Healing.

“We formed the group around the year of 2001. Me and S1 were in a group called Symbolic Elementz, while Myone was a solo artist we were working with on several collaborations,” says Myth. He continues, “There was a female by the name of Lysoul who I went to high school with and we were also collaborating with her. Anyway, since we were all working together, we decided to join forces and put out something creative and soulful,”

S1 believes he knows what separates them from other independent artists, “I would have to say that we always try to just do us. Not saying that other independent artists don’t but whenever we do us, it’s a certain sound that we bring that separates us from others.

“We basically just get in the studio and create. It may be an instance where I send the fellas a track to write to or I may have a hook already laid on the beat. Or they may already have a concept and we build off that. In the studio there are no limitations. Just wherever we want to go is where we take it,” smiles) S1.

SFP member Myone explains how the collaboration with established rapper Ghostface Killah came about on the song ‘Milk’em’. “Our management team hooked that up for us based on their relationships in the industry and things turned out well. We are grateful and thankful to have been on a track with such a well-known and talented MC as Ghost.”

Myth tries to write his influences list, “Too many artists to name, (laughs) Nah seriously, I would say artists like Prince, Stevie Wonder, Lenny Kravitz, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rakim, Redman, A Tribe Called Quest, Outkast and Dungeon Family, De La Soul, The Roots, Nas, Pharcyde, Hieroglyphics, Krs-One, Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth, Gangstarr, Boot Camp Click, Busta Rhymes, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and many jazz Greats! Really, I’m influenced by so many; I know I have left off quite a few.”

Myth then opens up about his childhood, “During my teenage years, I played sports and just normal teen stuff. Although, I noticed my tastes in music, and overall mentality was quite different from most of my peers. So I was kind of like an out kast in a sort of way, and I was real observant of my surroundings, but I was very proud of the music I listened to. Music became my art, my way of expressing my feelings and life in general.”

Recently, on OM Hip-Hop Records, in 2006, Strange Fruit Project released an impressive soul-infused hip hop album, for fans of Sa-Ra or Platinum Pied Pipers.

“We’ve worked with Erykah Badu, Little Brother, Darien Brockington, Yahzarah, Toby and Kay from Foundation, and our whole Aeonz crew. On production there’s Ninth wonder, Vitamin D, Jake One, Illmind, Foundation, and myself. It was a blessing to work with all these artist. When we began the project we started building with them and it was only right for us to start working together because we all loved respected each others work.”

I asked when was the last time they were happy or really p*ssed off? “Just yesterday. I laughed just because, no particular reason. Happy to be alive, thankful for my SFP brothers and just blessed to work on my music,” says Myone.

On a more serious note, the group share their music industry views, “We don’t know where to start, cause so much has changed, but we will say there needs to be more of a balanced platform. It seems so one-sided in the mainstream, it’s kind of sick! Depressing, but hopefully we can have more people take risks and give more opportunities for new artists to breakthrough.”