Homeboy Sandman is a minimalist in his personal life, and he’s purposefully engineered it that way.

The same way Italian super car makers gut out a perfectly fine and fast luxury vehicle and reconstruct it without out the frills of A/C,  booming stereo equipment, or navigation. Leaving only a body with the fastest super engine fitted inside capable of producing power so intense it could only be created via the freest thinking of imaginations. Similarly absent from Homeboy Sandman are the material trappings, ideas of grandeur, egomania and vanity that are acceptable  de riguer for today’s emcee. No matter how tempting a case they present to achieve success, Homeboy only deals in the raw un-cut down to his food, to ensure only the most unpolluted rhymes reach your ears.

That philosophy of scribing the freshest quality raps constructable made him a prime candidate

for MTV Iggy’s/Subway Sandwiches “Fresh Buzz” campaign where he lent his good for you rhyme style persona to their $5 “Eat Fresh’ commercials. Even though he’s candid about not eating Subway’s because he’s a raw organic vegan he does say, “I appreciate the alternative that Subway represents in the hood where there’s a bunch of terrible food to eat.” That in a nutshell surmises Homeboy’s character. He’ll get involved for a good cause even if he’s not affected by it directly and he’s down to contribute his biggest asset. Rhymes powered by the cleanest energy source in the universe, the sun. GET UP ON MAGIC!

24kMilkcrate is a Bay Area birthed site and in the Bay Area we have a very strong D.I.Y work ethic. Personally we first found out about you through someone who discovered you through your guerrilla New York City subway train promotions campaign. What inspired you to attack the game that way?

Homeboy Sandman: For me I always knew it was much less a question of meeting the right people or wearing the right whatever, as it was for me to just get people to hear the music. If I could get people to hear the music I knew I’d be straight. The whole thing about the campaign was to get people to my website, HOMEBOYSANDMAN.COM which was one of the first things I bought when I started to emcee. And then we bombed every single line in New York at least once. A city as big as New York you can still take over, it just takes some out of the box thinking.

When I saw you in your MTV Iggy X Subway (Sandwiches) commercial spots, something Pharrell said in an interview at Midem really struck me as relatable to you. In it he described how an artist these days should approach marketing in hip hop. First through establishing their website to keep in contact with fans and then through collaborating with advertisers and brands way before they even approach record labels. Talk about that a bit and how the MTV/Subway  deal came about for you.

Homeboy Sandman: Big shout to the brother Jamie from MTV Iggy who found me for that. I didn’t see that Pharrell interview but it seems like what he was saying is you have to do things for yourself before anyone does them for you. The Subway sandwich thing was fantastic. I actually don’t even eat Subway sandwiches but I appreciate the alternative that Subway sandwiches is in the hood where there’s such a bunch of terrible food to eat. The reason I did get with Subway is because they have fresh vegetable ingredients.

You gave the homie Keelay & Zaire a shout out in the beginning of the Subway commercial. What was their involvement in the commercial?

Homeboy Sandman: Oh he’s the man! If you see the (Subway) feature I rhyme to his beat. That beat was slammin’. I love soulful production and Keelay is consistently making slammin’ cuts that’s why I shouted him out.

On the food topic. Are you a vegetarian or a vegan?

Homeboy Sandman: I’m actually a raw organic vegan.

That’s hard core. Eating a vegetarian Subway sandwich doesn’t really do anything for you!

Homeboy Sandman: (laughs) What is it? They put all the condiments on there right?

Yea jalapenos, onions and stuff but it’s mostly lettuce which is mostly water.

Homeboy Sandman: Lettuce actually gets a bad rap! Lettuce is water. And people act like it ain’t got nuthin’ in it but lettuce grows from the earth. So there’s energy and power there. It ain’t dead it’s alive. There’s mysticism going on there I’m big into that.

You started answering this, but has changing your diet to raw vegan changed your rhymes or outlook on life?

Homeboy Sandman: Nothing can take me out of my flow. If my arms and legs fell off I’d still rhyme. But there’s so many distractions these days. I was talking to my brother from Africa, he’s 55 years old. And he said to me, “I don’t know how you raise kids in America. All these distractions on the T.V, phone, Twitter, everything is a distraction.” People don’t get the opportunity to get involved with the essence. I try to be as close to the essence as I can. So eating the way that I do, it’s easier to be in a great mood and write stuff that’s slammin’ everyday. When you know that there’s no chance you won’t write something slammin’ because you didn’t eat something right, or watched T.V that put something bad in your head. As a spiritual person I believe that we’re rewarded for doing good. If I cut out everything that may be bad, my rhyme flows like a free flowing river.

If Picasso were to ask you, “Homeboy, artist to artist what new vision and style do you bring to your art form?” What would you say to him?

Homeboy Sandman: I’d say, “Picasso, maybe you’re the only brother in the world that can paint your way. Then you can understand how I’m the only cat in the world that can rhyme the way I do. Any artist worth his soul is never going to try to do something that’s already been done. You know the saying, ‘No idea is original?’ Well I believe that there are (original ideas) but they’re like prime numbers. The further up you go the more spread apart they become. And that’s what I have to bring. Original melodies, original concepts, nothing derivative.” I’d like to preface that by saying I know that I’m building on the shoulders of great musicians. But you have to take what’s there and go someplace that hasn’t been gone before.

Top 5 non-hip hop artists that you dig that everyone should be up on?

Homeboy Sandman: When it comes to lyricism

#1: Stevie Wonder

#2: Billy Joel who is so slept on.

#3: Al Jerreau

#4: The Beatles

#5: All the old Motown Stuff, Commodores etc…

When it comes to singers as opposed to emcees it’s really hard to tell if they write their own stuff.

If there was one thing you could change about your life right now what would it be?

Homeboy Sandman: I’m happy with my life. But the one thing I’m working on changing if I had to pick one is this. There are times in my life where God is everywhere and it’s so obvious and I want to remember that fact without the obvious things happening. One time I was getting evicted from my apartment, because I owed $5,000 in back rent. I went to court that morning and I was going to get evicted and I had given up. I had already been to court a couple of times . But for some reason the court clerk pulls me aside and is like, “Yo, look you have a one bedroom apartment right next to the train. You’ll figure something out. Just don’t give up.” What is a court clerk going to pull me aside and tell me that for? I go home and check the email and there’s a $5,000 Tag Records Competition in Harlem later on that day. I knew the minute I saw that email I was going to go win that! And stuff like that happens all the time. So I don’t want to ever be down. Why should I be down when God controls everything? So the only thing I’d change is to remember that everything is always good. Even when you can’t tell why it is.

There are many sayings that are thrown around that are easier said that done. One of them is “Carpe Diem”, or sezing the day. As someone who seems to live by that, how do you implement that philosophy in your own life?

Homeboy Sandman: It has to do discipline and looking to make every moment of your day productive. Sometimes you can lay in your bed and be productive if you’re thinking about something. Not falling into routine that has nothing to show for itself. You don’t need to have a plaque you don’t need to have a billion dollars. But (you need) growth, constant growth and progress.

Last thing. You have an album coming out called  ”The Good Sun”  don’t you?

Homeboy Sandman: Yes I do. It’s called, “The Good Sun” and its coming out on May 4th. The sun rises and signifies the new day, it illuminates, and is the source of all energy. I’ve got production by M Slago, Psycho L.E.S, Ski Beats, Dj Spinna. I feel good because there is a good mixture of people who are decorated on there as well as producers that are up and coming. The production is solid.

Fin

Check out Homeboy Sandman on HERE on his site: HomeboySandman.Com