Check out this NY native with ferocious flows, a semi conscious demeanor and a very witty delivery. I’m talking about your homeboy and mine, Homeboy sandman. Hitting the showcase circuit harder then Mike Tyson in his prime, Homeboy Sandman is out to make a name for himself while he maintains his love for the true art and culture we call hip hop.

Homeboy Sandman, whats good fella? Let the world know about your movement.

Homeboy Sandman is hip hop for music lovers. Flows so dope you’d love ‘em even if he had no lyrics, meets lyrics so dope you’d love ‘em if he had no flows. Hip hop that’s never happened before.

You know i gotta ask, where did the name come from?

Sandman brings you your dreams. Paints pictures in your head. As real as anything you could ever imagine. Sometimes you can’t even tell the difference. I’m your Homeboy. And I’m also the Homeboy.

You have been on a steady grind the last few years making a name for yourself on the blogs by being a real advocate of hip hop. Define your grind and outline some of your accomplishments over the last year.

Unsigned Hype in the Source. Chairman’s Choice in XXL. Peter Rosenberg’s Top 25 Songs of 2008 as well as heavy rotation on his show on Hot 97. Rocking the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival, Rocksteady Weekend, the last hip hop show ever at the legendary Knitting Factory with Rakim and Black Thought. These are a few of the first things that come to mind. My grind yields results because it’s all I do, and I do it every day. No days off. If I’m not writing, or recording, or sifting through beats, or doing interviews, or visiting producers, or planning shows, or putting up full page flyers in the trains, or stuffing music magazines with flyers, or writing lyrics out on the street with sidewalk chalk, or answering phonecalls or email, then chances are I’m asleep. The things that people do to unwind, to take time off, I don’t not those. I mean, I do em sometimes. But it’s very very very very rare. There’s only so much time we’ve got a day, month, and year. I’m gonna spend as much of it as possible being mad nice, and letting people know about it.

You have a very, in your face, lyrical yet centered performance style. Semi concious, semi radical but very vintage in the approach to making songs that make impressions. What do you want people to experience after seeing you perform and hearing your music?

Something they’ve never seen before, that they can’t wait to see again. A live performance as on point as my recorded material. Where I connect with each and every person in the crowd on an individual basis so that they know that I mean every word I say, and that I mean it so much that I’m going to give every drop of energy that I can in expressing it to them. I don’t need a hype man. I am the hype man. Energy. I want them to experience raw natural hip hop energy. Magic. To feel songs that they’ve never heard before like they feel songs they’ve loved for years. That’s how crisp my delivery has gotta be. That’s how unique my flow, my character, my wordplay has to be. I want them to experience something they can’t take their eyes off of. Something that they wish lasted longer than however long it was. Something that makes them remember why they love hip hop. For real.

How do you create? Is there a formula, a process? How does the sandman do it?

The Boy Sand starts with beats for the most part. Then lays flows, like a saxophone player would lay a solo over a drum and a bass. Then plugs into that flow lyrics poignant, crisp, an potent. And NEW. New vocab. I go to the dictionary a lot. That’s how I write for the most part. Other times I craft without a beat, but there’s always a beat within. See “VerbalSoulClapMania.” See, “It Is What It Is.” See “Or.” Otherwise, I just tell the truth. Always.

With a slew of new artists from the east coast vying for a spot in the new regime of what the masses call ‘hip hp’, how do you intend to make your mark and what do you feel needs to happen to get to that point.

I need to be undeniably dope. Dope records. Dope shows. Dope, groundbreaking ideas. Check.

You had an interesting subway campaign at one point. Can you let the readers know about it, how you came up with the idea and how it helped get your buzz up.

I touched on it earlier. I bought a zillion copies of paper from Kinkos and printed up full page flyers. The first joints touched on emcees I knew were ill, who a lot of people might not even know about, but who the people who did know about em would be like, “this cat things THIS guy would approve? He must think he’s pretty dope.” They were real simple. They read “www.HomeboySandman.com. Big Pun would be proud” or “Black Thought Would Approve,” or “Mos Def.” Only the nicest cats. Then I started just putting whole rhymes up with the website underneath. “I got more bars than granola promoters/I caught Ebola and didn’t notice. www.HomeboySandman.com” Can’t really sleep on that. Then I did every train. Every single one. Entire cars. Slid the sheets of paper behind the advertising plastic. And just like that, I had a million dollar ad campaign for the price of construction paper.

Whats next for you?

A bunch of dope records and shows.

Where can we find you online?

www.homeboysandman.com
www.myspace.com/homeboysandman

Any last shouts or plugs?

AOK Collective – Fresh Daily, Nola Darling, 8th W1, P.CASSO, Print, 2 Hungry Bros, Sucio Smash. Highwater Music. 89.9 Squeeze Radio. Peter Rosenberg – “Real Late” Hot 97.1 Sunday nights from 12-2 am. Rosenbergradio.com

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