TSU Review – Homeboy Sandman_ Airwave Air Raid

 Very few independent Hip Hop artists take their craft so seriously that they go all-in on making their career work. This kind of dedication takes a level of commitment and sacrifice that may take years of hard work and uphill climbs. What can come out of it is a well-seasoned performer who has done so many shows that their sense about crowd reaction, participation and stage presence are highly developed. Rappers that have just started performing are much more about themselves than the audience when showcasing their music, it seems.

Homeboy Sandman is unique in that, while he is a seasoned veteran on the NYC music scene with all the aforementioned qualities, he seems completely absorbed in his own world. This world likely compels him to create an endless array of original cadences and rhyme patterns most of which are one of a kind. Some of these verse formats he has probably only used once, for that particular song and may sound somewhat foreign to the average swaggafied, pop-rap fan. To the Attuned Hiphoppa, one would detect strong Hip Hop influence with commentaries on society, the state of music, and constant verbal gymnastic exhibitions. Homeboy Sandman is a master of the artistic usage of rare, ambient, and miscellaneous words from the English language that never see the light day in the average rap song or Hip Hop classic for that matter. As unique as his vocabulary is, the first thing you notice though is the lack of familiar rhyme flows when he starts to spit. His songs like “Airwave Air Raid”, grab your attention with a forceful display of originality in the lyrical delivery which to some might seem offbeat or awkward at first. But as you hear it for the second, third and fourth time, the originality seems much more refreshing considering all the normal flows you are subjected too everyday. On Airwave Air Raid, an older song that most people reading this probably never heard, Homeboy Sandman goes in on the state of the radio describing it with words like insipid, tepid, parasitic, wretched, half-steppin, desolate, despicable, cyclical, typical, not difficult and many more. Then he goes on to say in the hook, “ I’m talkin’ bout an air raid. I’m here to aerate. You know the airwaves ain’t dope. When everybody do shit, but how they do shit? But you could tell that they don’t. Cause even if they did do, the shit is stupid anyway.  Cats is talkin bout nothin like Jerry and Elaine. It’s definitely not the type of shit your kids should emulate. So I’m blowin that away. Air raid muthafucka!” Here, separate from the beat and the overall song, the hook might again seem awkward or offbeat, but when you listen to it in the context of the whole song its sounds kinda dope.

One,

Kurt Nice