Artist Spotlight: Strange Fruit Project
Upon release of their third album, The Healing, the Strange Fruit Project could finally acquire their well-deserved recognition.
Myth, Myone, and Symbolic One (S1), three dynamite emcee’s, all grew-up in Waco, Texas. S1, producer-extraordinaire, began playing the piano, keyboards, and drums at a young age. His cousin, Myth, short for Mythological, is known to be the “abstract one of the crew.” S1 and Myth have been collaborating since 1996, when they formed the group Symbolyc Elementz. The Source featured Symbolyc Elementz as “Unsigned Hype” in May 1996. The only element missing: Myone.
S1 met Myone (pronounced my-own) at his day job a couple years later. Eventually the three recorded a few tracks in the studio, and were impressed by how well they sounded together. Myone, Myth, and S1 stayed in the studio recording tracks without any expectations and without even giving thought of an official collaboration. Before they knew it, they had recorded enough songs for an entire album.
It was then that they decided to form the Strange Fruit Project. Their name originates from the 1939 song “Strange Fruit,” made infamous by performer Billie Holiday, which was written about the violent discrimination towards black men in the south. During the early 1900’s, more black men were lynched in Waco, Texas than anywhere else in the U.S. Myone, S1, and Myth wanted to express the struggles of everyday people through their music.
The group’s debut album, From Divine, was released in 2002 and was embraced by the underground hip-hop scene. Myone tells The Providence Journal, “From Divine is a lot more free. We did a lot more freestyling on that album.” Although freedom is the major component in creating any form of art, they seemed to get more attention from a more structured follow-up album.
SFP came back with a punch on their second album, Soul Travelin’. This album was not only given rave reviews by dedicated fans, but also by musicians who influenced SFP. ?uestLove of The Roots compliments, “Most of my iPod is just a random 9000 songs and occasionally I have to walk up to it, pull it out of the pocket and see who it is. The artist I did that the most to was Strange Fruit Project (From Divine/Soul Travelin’).” Not to mention it was Erykah Badu who phoned SFP, to praise their talent and insisted on doing a track together on their upcoming album.
The Strange Fruit Project has high expectations to live up to, especially when hip-hop appears to be on its deathbed. Hopefully, The Healing will have the capability to heal and rejuvenate the artistry of a diseased, yet beautiful, means of expression!
Comment by dance
Ooh! Que local grande. Eu emiti-lo-ei a todos meus amigos.