Homeboy Sandman

Homeboy Sandman grew up in New York City and attended boarding school at New Hampshire’s Holderness School (part of New York City’s Prep For Prep 9 program). He received an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and subsequently enrolled in law school at Hofstra University. He withdrew from law school during his third year to pursue his career as an emcee.

Homeboy Sandman recorded and released his first EP, Nourishment, in March 2007. His debut full length album, entitled Nourishment (Second Helpings), was released in August 2007. In early 2008 Homeboy Sandman’s work began to be featured on underground radio programs the Squeeze Radio Show on WKCR 89.9 FM and the Halftime Radio Program on WNYU 89.1 FM in New York. In June 2008 he was featured in Source Magazine’s «Unsigned Hype» column.[1]

His second album, Actual Factual Pterodactyl was acclaimed upon its release in August 2008. The album received an entry in XXL Magazine’s Chairman’s Choice column, which praised Homeboy Sandman’s «sharp lyrics and irresistibly melodic flow, which, together, form an elastic instrument few MCs can match.»[2] Actual Factual Pterodactyl received critical acclaim in a multitude of other print and online publications, including Blender Magazine, Beyond Race Magazine, Okayplayer.com and MSN.com.[3] At the end of 2008, Homeboy Sandman was named «Best Hip Hop Act in NYC 2008» by New York Press.[4] Recently his music has received rotation on NYC’s Power 105.1 FM and Hot 97.1 FM, the city’s #1 Hip Hop and R&B radio station, as well as international radio airplay on Spitkicker Radio (Channel 65 on XM Satellite Radio), DJ Premier’s «Live From HeadQCourterz» (Sirius Satellite Radio’s #1 ranked Hip Hop show) and BBC 1Xtra’s Hip Hop M1X (Hosted by DJ Sarah Love), among others.

In addition to his studio releases, Homeboy Sandman has garnered widespread attention for his live performances. Early in his career he was a Ralph McDaniels Video Music Award Winner and he received End of the Weak’s inaugural «Strongest New Artist» award in 2008 for his participation in the open mic and weekly MC challenges. He then went on to become the NYC Champion in Jermaine Dupri’s TAG Records «Survival of the Fittest» competition in August 2008[5] and was a finalist in Loud.com’s $100,000 Rapper Challenge in 2009.[6] From January 2008 to August 2009, Homeboy Sandman served as the host of “ALL THAT! Hip Hop, Poetry and Jazz” at the Nuyorican Poets Café, New York City’s longest running open mic session (originally hosted by Hip Hop icon Bobbito García). He has performed at the biggest hip hop shows around the country, including the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin, TX, the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival in Brooklyn, NY, the Rock the Bells hip hop festival in Long Island, NY, the A3C Hip Hop Festival in Atlanta, GA and New York City’s CMJ Music Marathon. Homeboy Sandman has also been noted for recording video interviews with other performers at his live shows, which are captured in his YouTube video series «Homeboy Sandman presents Live From…»

In addition to his own releases, Homeboy Sandman has appeared on numerous records by other artists, frequently with members of the AOK Collective, with whom he is affiliated.[7] He recently appeared on Fresh Daily’s 2009 album The Gorgeous Killer In Crimes of Passion and the 2008 album For Your Consideration released by P.SO (formerly P. Casso). Homeboy Sandman collaborated with both Fresh Daily and P.SO for the song «Get On Down,» which is featured on Sonic Smash, the album released in 2009 by music producer DJ Spinna.[8] Homeboy Sandman has also laid down tracks for a series of features with RIDES Magazine.[9] The track that Homeboy Sandman created for the Loud.com challenge, «Gun Control,» was cited as one of the Top 25 Songs of 2009 by Hot 97 DJ Peter Rosenberg.[10]

In January 2010 Homeboy Sandman became a featured artist in the «SUBWAY Fresh Buzz» campaign, a collaborative program by Subway and MTV Networks to profile emerging artists.[11]

On June 1st 2010, Homeboy Sandman released his third album, The Good Sun. The album was released on New York City-based indy record label High Water Music and features production from 2 Hungry Bros, Ski Beats, Thievin’ Stephen, DJ Spinna, Psycho Les (The Beatnuts) and Core Rhythm, among others. This, his first commercial release with major retail distribution, again received critical acclaim from various publications including Okayplayer[12] and HipHopDX, which notes «[f]rom mic to plug, The Good Sun is a sleek offering loaded with relentless, genre-pushing musicality, otherworldly rhyme schemes and contextual relevance. It’s the type of album where the sum of the whole is greater than each individual part; a collection of songs so solid and so well placed that, together, they lift the album into rarified air.»[13] The first single off of The Good Sun was «Angels with Dirty Faces,» produced by J57.[14] In September 2010 Homeboy Sandman released his first official video for «The Good Sun» for the track entitled The Essence.

Most recently, Homeboy Sandman was featured as the coach in an episode of MTV’s MADE (TV Series), which premiered in October 2010.