What New York hip-hop needs is a little more competence. More masters of ceremony, fewer aspiring Kings of New York so intent on spitting brand names that they might drop the mic. Less beef, more nourishment.
Lots of underground MCs deserve to be underground—because they’re trash. Homeboy Sandman is a rarer breed—a neck snapper, who can wake up those sluggish underground shows at 2 a.m., when the crowd has had its fill of knowledge gods and is ready to bounce, rock, skate and wonder, “What was that crazy shit he just said?”
Sandman admits that the album that first drew him into hip-hop was the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff’s He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper. His sound’s recipe is one part early career Fresh Prince, one part mid-career Ras Kass, two parts bionic man, four parts nitric oxide. Mix in a blender with steroids—and serve with a fried microphone.
“I was lucky to get out of New York. I went to high school in New Hampshire…so I wasn’t just Hot 97’d out,” he says. “My philosophy is…first and foremost, it’s music. You have to have rhythm. You have to have flow. Your voice needs to be another instrument on that track. Even if you wasn’t saying words—even if you were just going ‘dugga dugga dit, dugga dugga dat,’ it has to have flow, it has to have rhythm. Too much of this hip-hop has no music involved in it now. It’s just people talking, saying dumb shit.”
On his debut album, Nourishment, Sandman’s precise, manic flow lines up words back-to-back like cars in a Midtown traffic jam, over Washington Heights-based producer Ron Kain’s bright, hectic beats. In “Extreme Measures,” he’s forced to scale a building, sneak into a radio station and take hostages to get some airplay: “Spider-Man Sandman walked, crawling across the 24 floors without fallin’/Took the glass cutter, I cut the glass like warm butter/The fastest road runner brother.” When he makes it into the office “where the asinine masterminds who design airtime reside,” he pops off some shots, passes out some albums and issues a firm edict: “I want every record in this collection/On every radio getting reception/In every neck of the woods/And neighborhoods in every direction.”
Sometimes an MC’s gotta do what an MC’s gotta do. If the industry was fair, Sandman would be famous already. The ridiculously catchy “We Can Fly” (not available on the album—check homeboysandman.com) combines his ghostly breeze of a voice with a dance-worthy track that should have made it the jam of the summer. Damn those radio execs—maybe next summer.
Sandman’s hip-hop chops are drum tight, and he has a master plan: He’s currently in law school. He’s too eclectic to be labeled as the generic “positive MC,” but he knows what he likes.
“People are always like, ‘You don’t like drug [music],’” he says, scoffing before he clarifies: “I don’t like whack shit.”
October 5, Alphabet Lounge, 104 Ave. C (at 7th St.), 212-780-0202; 8, $6.
Lots of underground MCs deserve to be underground—because they’re trash. Homeboy Sandman is a rarer breed—a neck snapper, who can wake up those sluggish underground shows at 2 a.m., when the crowd has had its fill of knowledge gods and is ready to bounce, rock, skate and wonder, “What was that crazy shit he just said?”
Sandman admits that the album that first drew him into hip-hop was the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff’s He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper. His sound’s recipe is one part early career Fresh Prince, one part mid-career Ras Kass, two parts bionic man, four parts nitric oxide. Mix in a blender with steroids—and serve with a fried microphone.
“I was lucky to get out of New York. I went to high school in New Hampshire…so I wasn’t just Hot 97’d out,” he says. “My philosophy is…first and foremost, it’s music. You have to have rhythm. You have to have flow. Your voice needs to be another instrument on that track. Even if you wasn’t saying words—even if you were just going ‘dugga dugga dit, dugga dugga dat,’ it has to have flow, it has to have rhythm. Too much of this hip-hop has no music involved in it now. It’s just people talking, saying dumb shit.”
On his debut album, Nourishment, Sandman’s precise, manic flow lines up words back-to-back like cars in a Midtown traffic jam, over Washington Heights-based producer Ron Kain’s bright, hectic beats. In “Extreme Measures,” he’s forced to scale a building, sneak into a radio station and take hostages to get some airplay: “Spider-Man Sandman walked, crawling across the 24 floors without fallin’/Took the glass cutter, I cut the glass like warm butter/The fastest road runner brother.” When he makes it into the office “where the asinine masterminds who design airtime reside,” he pops off some shots, passes out some albums and issues a firm edict: “I want every record in this collection/On every radio getting reception/In every neck of the woods/And neighborhoods in every direction.”
Sometimes an MC’s gotta do what an MC’s gotta do. If the industry was fair, Sandman would be famous already. The ridiculously catchy “We Can Fly” (not available on the album—check homeboysandman.com) combines his ghostly breeze of a voice with a dance-worthy track that should have made it the jam of the summer. Damn those radio execs—maybe next summer.
Sandman’s hip-hop chops are drum tight, and he has a master plan: He’s currently in law school. He’s too eclectic to be labeled as the generic “positive MC,” but he knows what he likes.
“People are always like, ‘You don’t like drug [music],’” he says, scoffing before he clarifies: “I don’t like whack shit.”
October 5, Alphabet Lounge, 104 Ave. C (at 7th St.), 212-780-0202; 8, $6.
