Artist Profile: Homeboy Sandman

No news, just information that you won't care bout the tubes, unless you had it in a party trying to impress

“owns in attendance with endless tickets of nonsense.”

We're gonna have a good time, I promise you two rabbit holes, ready to die. We're gonna now hold in the fuse from the arc of the style's past trends all the time. It's the Omega Ramp! Alright, what's up y'all, welcome to the Omega Ramp. I'm your host Don Will and today's guest is one of my favorite people to interview. He's one of the most prolific artists working today and his dedication to the craft of MCing is refreshing, ladies and gentlemen.

Homeboy Sandman! What's up? What's good, man? Tell them everything, good. Yeah, how you feeling? I feel good, having a great day, how it's great. I want to get right into it, man. Let's do this right to it. I'm happy to be here rocking with you, I, you guys have an illustrious interview and, you know,

career that you built over a long time, I'm happy to be sitting with you. It's been a while. Thank you, man. Yeah, we sat down and for my other show, there was the book of rhyme. Shout out to my guy, classic material. Yeah, with loads. Lose, man. Lose, go. Lose, mecha. Yeah, yeah, hold on, hold on, gang. But, I don't think this is the question, I don't think we covered back then, maybe we did, I don't remember.

But, I wanna ask you about your name, homeboy Sandman.

“Right, right. Are there any areas that's like, how'd you come up with the name?”

Well, I come up with the name, homeboy Sandman, because, me and my boys, I had three of my homeboys, my clothes, homeboys with Dwight Desmond and Darryl, when I was a kid. We called ourselves the Quadrant, like a squadron of four. We rolled, saw those in my dudes, you know?

And we, we, we always think of nicknames, like, I remember we had dog tags with different nicknames.

And we was doing this before Mootang, remember Mootang came out with the, but the alien citizen and everybody had their senses. We was actually doing that before Mootang. Not the Mootang took it from us. We hadn't taken it from them. Yeah. So, I always used to go think about, like, you know, Teddy Anglicus, one of them, I remember, I remember Buck, but he still was one of them, and my boy, Des was DNA, like, we all had

mad, like, we had like five, six different names. And I was always thinking of them. But then I come up on this homeboy salmon when they, I just thought of it. And I, and it resonated with me to, like, a new, a new degree. Right. So, I was like, that's the one. But initially it was like, it was like, initially it was like, as far as roms, you know, the same in bringing your dreams. People think it's the same in, put you to sleep, but that's not, that's a,

a misconception. The same in bringing your dreams. You could be daydream. And that's the same. It is. Yeah. Just the same man, bring me a dream. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it's like, as far as roms, I could put a, I could have so much detail going on. It's like, I'm bringing to that world, you know, and I mean, at homeboys, like, that's my people. This is my friend, you know? Yeah. But however, just my fault. I like this answer, and I like it. But, but a lot

of times when I'm ramen, I don't really know what the rhyme even means until, like, sometimes, years later, you know, and I mean, I just know that it's the right one. But now I realize that that homeboy salmon is about my journey to become a me and become a myself, because because I start off in my home as a boy, you know, saying, I start off, and I don't really know, and I'm very much identifying with whatever is to identify with right around me. But then,

I get to, to, to, to, to travels, you know, like saying, you know, saying it in the town. You know, you know, and not only that, but also, like, footprints in the sand. So it's not only time, but it's like the journey. I'll become a me and, you know, I'm saying, so it's like homeboy

“salmon. And that's what it really means. Yeah, that's, that's a hard answer, man. Like your name,”

your name is, it's a fun to say a name. Like in, in my phone, I have boy sand, you know, but I got to change the, to sand, man, just sand, man, because you're not a boy. You know, there's that explanation, I'm like up. But what are the, what are the names of people call you, like I said, it was like Nick name. I like boy sand a lot. Boy sand, I'm called you, Sandy. Yeah, people call me Sandy. Yeah, yeah. Some people even seem like when they write to call me

sand and say, yeah, and you know, I mean, yeah, but, um, people call me Angel, you know, I'm saying, sand is without, though, right? Like sand is right here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's close. All right, so we can talk about that for hours, because we can, we can talk about anything for hours. But I did a quick out of your social media and research and his interview. And aside from a few fan pages, you are mostly offline. Do

you feel any pressure to be active on social media at all? No. Never, none. You don't like, like,

okay, my next question with that. You said, no, I'll let you out of your experience, plan it. Yeah. I'm going to just, uh, press me from what? I don't know, pressure from, like, people, like, you know, did you see that name? Like, there's a name, the main right now, the main right now. I'll tell you what, what's happening on social media. There's a main right now where everyone's in love with a baby hippo. Okay. So new born hippo and literally, it has the world in a choke hole,

it's the dumbest shit in the world. A baby hippo. It's a baby hippo. So what's the last

meme that has penetrated the sandman bubble? When I was on line, the meme was the crying Jordan meme. Oh, shit. That's, that's, that's, you got to get this, I was up there.

“That's what I go back. Maybe I should just start. Now I'm not going to start texting you memes,”

'cause then you're black. Okay. This is this. Cast on it, try to text me to internet all day. Yo, people go to, they send me Instagram, uh, links. Like, I'm not really, I don't have Instagram, so I can't really watch that. And, but now we're got out about that. So people screen shot the internet and send it to me on WhatsApp. It's like people patrol that you've had. Yeah, they're trying to get me. They're trying to get me in there, you know? Well, I mean, I would honestly

advise you, I don't got to advise you, but because you're doing it right, stay off the internet. It's, I mean, you're, like, unless it's for the art or for the sake of, like, promoting something, stay off, but a lot of times that gets tangled up in being online. Like, you might go on to, like, update some info about it. Show, and all of a sudden you're looking at baby hippo.

Oh, yeah. Well, because I was on it, I was on it from 2016 to 2020. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So my first,

my first, you know, my first record drop at 2007. So I went nine years and I held out, but then I keep getting, you expected that, I find. And, for a while, I was willing, you know, this helps spend the work, but I definitely got sucked into a vortex, like a hundred percent, you know? So, so, with you being offline so much, it gives you a lot of free time. What do you do with South Scrolling Socials? Like, what are you doing? I write a lot of rhymes, man. I mean, I write rhymes

all the time. You know, like, I record many days a week. You know, I would say,

“I'm recording songs every week, and I write and I love to read. That's what I was going to ask,”

okay, so you love to read. Yeah, generally, I'm, I'm, I'm, I live a pretty simple life, you know, I do some reading, I do some exercise, you know, I'm saying, and then I do some writing. Also, at the time, I'm doing writing, then a little bit of reading, maybe a little bit more and exercise, eat some good food, and then at night, my wife and I would like to watch a movie, you know, I'm saying why, so I probably watch like five movies a week, and then, you know, we like

to go, I love to take walks and stuff like that. Yeah, those are my activities. Man, I love, I love the way you live, it's intentional, it's simple, but it's not simple in the bad way, it's more simple and like scaled down. Like, like, you care a lot about what you intake. Yeah, and I'm saying absolutely. So, with that, you said you like to read books, what book are you reading now? Can you record me a book? Yeah, yeah. Well, I just started, well, the last book I read was one of my favorite

books, it was called The Master in the Emissary. It was about the two different brain hemispheres, forget the name of the cat the wrote, but I just finished out a couple of days ago, was anemic, remember, wrote that, I can't remember. But that is tied for my favorite book of all time with women who run with the wolves, well, which was remembered by Clarissa Pinkole and Esties, which held on to the best book, my favorite book for years and years and years until

I read the master and I'm a serrida of a day. The women who run with wolves has been popping up in my, like, in my periphery for like the last book. Like, I've seen it, I've seen the title, I've seen the book, I've seen per people talking about it. Like, this is confirmation, I probably need to read

that book. It's a may, I was in about, is it about a woman raised by wolves? Never mind. I mean,

it's about myths and fables and folklore and legends and stories, but what they really say about life and what they say about the psyche and what we know, like, you know, right now, one of the books I'm reading right now is the biography, even though I don't read a lot of biographies, it's first one I read in many years of Joseph Campbell, but I love Joseph Campbell, who wrote the power of myth. Okay. Anyway, I bring it all up because it's about stories, but then it breaks

down important life lessons. And for you, I would say if you're going to read it like the first three or four chapters, because it's a thick book, it's very rich. Yeah, I was going to, you know, I would say you might have to just, you know, machete away through some vans for a little while, but it's worth it. That's the only book as soon as I finish the last page, I turned to ourselves and began to read twice in a row again and read the footnotes because then it's heat in the footnotes. The footnotes go crazy.

“Yeah, footnotes go crazy. That's what I think it definitely. So, all right, are you, are you excited”

about Tana Howsi Kosovo coming up? I'm not up on it. Okay, I forget what it's called, but he's doing, he's on a press run about it. Yeah. Books seems like another thing we can talk about for a long time because you clearly are well read, but I want to get back to social media and talk about your Patreon, which is where people can find you. Like if anybody asks what's up with homeboy Sam and I usually point them towards your Patreon. So, what's your, what's been your

experience in a subscription-based social media community? I built in a community based on supporters. I really love Patreon, you know what I mean? You know, for one, like I do have pictures that I want to share, or like, you know, like, we'll shoot a video, we'll have some behind-the-scenes stuff, or even just different things I want to share. That was the be the type of thing I used to

like, hey, this is my, you know, this is the homeboy Sam and online thing. This, you know,

“and that doesn't, you know, like, so it's cast that rock with me to whatever degree or understand,”

or no, like, you know, my music is very much an introduction to me and who I am. So, so, it's cast that have an understanding. So, we have conversations on there. We don't even, we don't gotta agree. Last time as you have mad, I'd be sharing with people things, I won't even share in this interview, unless you ask straight out about the share. You gotta subscribe, you gotta subscribe to get that interview. Subscribe to the Patreon. But the Patreon is, I love the Patreon, you know, especially

because I record so much. Yeah, you do. I got more, I, easily. I mean, I might have three, four, more, I don't have three, four times as many unreleased songs as I have songs. And I'm putting out, you know, your, your, your discography is deep. So, they have three, it's like have double

that amount unreleased. Yeah, I got more than double. And I get to share with the, with the

Patrons because it's like, they, they, they are trusted, you know, they put it down. They put it down. They put it down. They, they, they monthly subscription. Not only support, the support is, it make a major difference, like, you know, you know, it's helpful in life. I kicked the wrong, you know, thank you to the fans that are still with me, but also underground. And all the bothers to a date, my wiki, thank you to the Patrons, a drop monthly. They even went out and all right. Oh, so, yeah, my wife has still come for you.

You know, I'm saying the Patreon is great for that. So, I love Patreon, I love my, but yeah, check, the Patreon. Check the Patreon. He's, I went and checked it out and I was like, oh, it's like, this is where his social media. This is where he's social that on social that's media. It's all the things. I would say that. Yeah, that I might throw out on Instagram or Twitter for free. You know, I say that. I say that. So, yeah, Patreon, checking out there. So, you've worked with some of the best

labels, including metal music group, and stones throw. And now you founded your own label,

“dirty looks. What have you learned so far about writing your own label from the past experiences?”

I took the peanut butterwolf once, and, and, and, and, um, I said whatever advice, you can say anybody's starting a label. He would say, my advice would be, don't do it. I did not know that was my career. And, um, it's, it's a lot to it. You know what I mean? Um, we making errors. Me or me is, is daring. But each other, my boy, daring. That's my manager. You know, helps you with the physical distributive, the online distributive, you know, like,

my boy, looped the art director, my boy art, with the videos, my boy, dark one, engineering. Big shout, my whole dirty looks team, you know? Um, my boy game, you know, but, but, but, uh, we've made a, like, I just got the pre-order for Rich to, uh, very recently. And I have been out for a long time. The pre-order for physicals, for physicals. Okay, the final. And, and, and, we had, we switched

digital distributors and that, like, there's just been a lot of, yeah. And this is with the second, you know,

we learned stuff on Rich. One, we learned more stuff on Rich too. Yep. So, it's, it depends it still, things to learn. Um, but it's cool. It's our part of, I mean, I, I really like, um, I mean, I'm very grateful to work with, uh, the labels that I've, you know, that have been allies of mine, you know, in the past, you know, and I feel, uh, without, without being with those labels, I, I wouldn't have, they really helped me gain them momentum and, and, and the, and the, and the, and the

reach so that I could do things on my own. You know, I'm saying something very grateful for that. But not that I feel like I could do things on my own, um, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's learning, learning, it's, it's a, it's a growing pace. It's, it's a journey. It's also like a living, it's a living thing, like, like figuring out how to release albums, like, because I've released my own stuff too, like, we're here and there. And I've went from trying to do digital only to do a vinyl,

like, just that there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that you figure out in the wash that you try to, like, hold onto the, the next time. But with that, are there any self-release artists or

“artists from labels that you love to look up to, like, when I think of self-releasing artists or”

independent labels, I think of, like, the alchemist or Brownsville, I mean, not Brownsville or Kai, because he goes by Brownsville. Like, like, you're not on Instagram, like that. So like, Kyle will do these like, I'm up on Kyle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm up on James. Like, I'm like, you're up on James. Yeah, but I'm up on Flop James. Yeah. You know, I might not be up on all of my James. If you, you know, you told me about some cat early, you said he was cooking.

I forget his name, but I go check him out, because I love that music. But yeah, like, Kyle, he just showed, like, recently, he put up a post showing all this vinyl we had that was coming out of that he found his storage, whatever. And I was just thinking, like, man, to be able to move that much volume, be able to store that volume of vinyl and move it. It's crazy. It's got to be like such a cool thing. Like, of any artists that you see, self-releasing that you kind of look

up to a little bit or like, you kind of like think. Since you brought up Kai, he's definitely, I mean, I'm not even, he's, he's making fly records don't get in the world out, you know, I'm saying that that, that. I would almost, I'm not comparing, but I would almost like him to you in the sense, and that he's not really social media. He's kind of, he's kind of

And it is, it's, it's fascinating. It's inspiring, motivating, like, you know, it's all the things that I would attribute to your career to. Good looking up, good looking up. But that seems like good usage, how he's using it, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And when you were shouting out, your, um, dirty looks team, you shouted out the art director. Yeah, my boy, the warmth. That's, that's part of the question I had is that like, you have some incredible visuals from

videos, it, check out this man's video, his videography, it's crazy, his videos. But from videos to even flyers and cover art, like what role does visual art play in your career? Well, you know,

my sister's a visual artist, she was always a painter. She was, she was, she was, you know,

doing our sister's kids. When me, I got in the ramen later on, even always loved ramen, but I always kind of admired it. And I knew, you know, growing up there was kids that could

“do graph, you know, my hand style was very wide. Like I always admired visual art, you know what I mean?”

So I don't, I don't feel I have any aptitude in it, but, but, but, but I've been really blessed. I've been really, really blessed God blesses me, but I just put in me, you know, my last couple of videos, the video, the women video. Yeah, yeah, that was my boy Danny Sanger from London. And he did, he did that and part me, he did that and alchemy was my last thing videos that come out. And he had the ideas of both of those videos. Okay. So, so where I started off as,

okay, I can't make this stuff myself, but I have blue warmth, armor, you know, the zium, you know, people who have come and help me over the years, um, now people kind of see oldest cat, he's trying to get real autistic with his visuals, and they'll come to me with fly ideas, which wasn't even happening at the beginning, and I had to kind of try to think outside the box and make you real. But now so many cats have kind of been like, you know, this cat is open to

someone's usual stuff, let me see what I could bring to them, you know what I mean? So Danny,

Danny brought me some incredible, so it's really gather momentum now, just, but but it's all based

in like, you know, my, you know, I feel this, you know, very unique, you know, it's very distinct, you know? I don't want the visuals to match, you know. Yeah, they do, like the video, that's video I saw from you was the one with a, Amani Fae Ra, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's win win. Okay, that's win win. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like some like I'm no bullshit, man. Sometimes I just go and watch like maybe five or six year videos in a row. And I have to stop there because it's literally would just be like two hours worth of my time. But it's almost like it's just fun watching your videos as it is listen to your music and a lot of times. The image makes this indelible connection to the song. So it's just a fun journey that I will recommend anybody to check them out to show checkout.

All right, so moving on to something else, a while back those are cash out of you out and said that you were one of our favorite rappers. My question is how did it feel to know that she was tapped into what you were doing. That felt great. It was fantastic. You know, I um, I love when anybody, when whenever anybody's checking for me, you know, saying that it was, it was a mate. I got to give her a mad post because there's mad people that more people know to me that are listening to what I do all the time. All I'm saying is big shout to her because she was, you know, shine a some light.

You know what I'm saying, which really speaks a lot to her, to her character.

“Yeah, man. And I'm confident in how she get down, you understand?”

Like she's one of, she's one of, she's, she's, she's great and and literally great. Yeah, I was it to be honest, I wasn't really up and I, and I did, you know, it's not like I had a preconceived notions about her in particular. But I just am weary of of what's getting a lot of push a lot of time, but but then I went and checked around and said, well, she got bored and I was surprised. Yeah, those was one of those ones, man, like I caught on to her, where she did, I don't know how familiar you are with her, this choreography, but she loved when it checked out. I don't know the names of the James, but she definitely got some haters that I know.

Like the, the one that popped was one, like a joke song, she made called, I'm a coward, whatever it was like a silly thing song song. And that was the one where people kind of was like, what is this? And they started her bubbling up, but she leveraged that and then made a couple of pop gems that kind of like, you know, we're big and ready, but the whole time leverage that to just make rap.

Like her last album is incredible rap music, I'm a big dose of cat fans, so it was nice to see her give you a shout because it's like, oh yeah, they do pay attention to us, you know what I'm saying?

Like that felt like a win for everybody, it's like a win win, if you will, you know what I'm saying?

“All right, so, and I think one of the things that made her really tap in is that you're really good at turning everyday things and kind of like, I won't say mundane, but like the overlooked topics into just these great songs.”

My question to you is how do you turn this kind of like everyday subject up into a like a compelling song? What attracted you to like uncovered subjects like that? I mean, I don't, it's not completely conscious or anything. It's not like I'm always out there being like, yo, what have and I wrapped about yet or what haven't people wrapped about yet to try to, yeah, yeah.

I was, it's embarrassing to be part of a genre that can break away from three, four things. I'm embarrassed.

People, people here, like I was at a comedy soda and then you know how cats snap, they ought to snap. And I was so nervous because he was asking people what's he a job, but if I don't told him I was a rapper, he didn't do it all stupid things about you know what I'm saying? And he didn't ask me, he did get a, and he was, because we were close to the front, but he didn't ask you about that, so I was just relieved, he was funny it was good. But it's embarrassing to even, to get a question as an artist of like, you strained from the four or five things, where's that come from?

And like, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to, I'm trying to take what I experience and channel it, it's a art, and that is infinite amount of things, you know what I'm saying?

“So I think it comes from there organically, you know what I'm saying?”

Yeah, like the art, like, I feel like everything you've talked about in this interview and everything I know about you, like you, you kind of just live the art. You know what I'm saying? You're, you're, you're like a funnel, you're like a receiver, and it comes through you and it comes into the, onto the page, and everything you put down is always worth listening to.

Good looking off, thank you.

So last question, you're about to hit the road for the wild ridge two tour. Yeah, yeah. My question is, do you enjoy touring? Um, you seem like a homebody type of cat. I'm definitely, I love coming back home.

And, and even when you asked, you know, like there was a little tone or like, do you enjoy touring? Because you know, I know that, you know what I'm saying? It's just a lot of, you know, it's not, it can be discomfort and the back to back to back to backness of things. And, but I love rocking, I love rocking shows, I love rocking shows. So me, when I'm shot, and you know, me, I be trying to eat certain ways, so I'm trying to, I got to, I've been to every whole foods in this country.

I got to know how I've used another country. But, but, but, but, but, but, but, even when I'm like, Oh, D, you know, and I'm getting tired. I'm not told me to, I love, but we've been next to each other all the time. Yeah, that's another thing that dynamic of the tour.

“Oh, yeah, there's a whole, I think there's a whole, you could be with your best friend in the whole world.”

You know, just the vibe. You know, and, and proximity, you know, saying, just breathe.

But, um, but, when I get up on stage, I always, even if I'm tired, I get alert.

Even if I, even if I cold drove, you know, 10 hours from the city before because we got an offer. And we had to drop 10 hours before the show, you know what I'm saying? When I get up there, I'll be like, but this is a blessing to be up here, you know, and I'm getting, like, to get the transmit this way. So, so I do love very much being on the road, you know. Okay, I mean, I wouldn't let all mine, a whole bunch of other luxuries, you know, like, I wouldn't mind, you know, but I love being on the road.

Not know exactly what you're saying. Like, the road is a, it's a special sort of thing. And a lot of times, once you're out there, you gotta like, but for me anyway, I'm just remember the last time I was out there. I had to hold onto the memory of not being on the road to just enjoy being on the road. Because the 30, 30 minutes to our year on the stage versus the 23 hours you're not, so not to deal with it. But hey, where are you going?

While my rich toy is going to be in California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Texas, Ohio, Idaho, Montana, I got hyped for us.

“I remember that. Oh, but earlier this year, I think I was in, was I initially?”

Yeah, it looks like this year. I rock since he pretty recently was either this year or last year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like I have a lot of fun. You know, I have a cleaves, and obviously, but I, I may be forgetting to stay to two and there's multiple cities within each of those states. But if you go to the Patreon, the Patreon. That, you know, Patreon.com/HonboySame and a flyer is up there.

Or if you just put homeboySame in that comment to the thing, I think it redirects to the Patreon. Yeah, and we're going to link your Patreon in the meta data of this thing. But I'm going to let you get ready for tour and let you get up out of here, man. Thanks so much for having me down out there. Thank you so much.

To rabbit holes ready to dance. But let now hold into huge from the arc. Styles fans, trends all the way. It's the all-manack of rap.