★★★★★
Although characteristically chunky with rhyme like a Mondrian painting and interstitial melodies audibly informed by his background in saxophone, it feels disingenuous to call White Sands a Homeboy Sandman release, an ambivalence to which the title gestures. He emcees over Paul White's beats in a reciprocal and intimate EP of lurking, trilling beauty and sociological attention so aesthetically attuned that the boundaries between pedagogy, observation, and moralization Sand toed for six EPs and...
- www.popmatters.com
2014-09-19
★★★★★
The Great Rap Jiggy vs. Backpack Civil War of the late '90s and early '00s didn't have a clear winner, but there were certainly a few martyrs. Chief among them was the independent New York label Rawkus Records. More than anything, Rawkus represented a refuge for the rap nerd, a place to enjoy rapping for rapping's sake, beats that really only worked in a pair of headphones and room for progressive ideas...
- exclaim.ca
2014-09-04
★★★★★
If indie-rap heads weren't sure what to make of Homeboy Sandman as the calendar flipped over to 2012, they've had so many opportunities to figure him out that anybody still left behind has just about lost. We're talking six releases of note in just over 24 months--Subject: Matter, Chimera, First of a Living Breed, Kool Herc: Fertile Crescent, and All That I Hold Dear all dropped through 2013, with White Sands, his first release of 2014, making it half a dozen...
- pitchfork.com
2014-02-25
★★★★★
In the past, whether or not you've enjoyed the music of Queens rapper Homeboy Sandman has had a lot to do with the way in which you digest rap verses. His delivery is halted, stuttering-- not really a flow so much as a series of strategically layered blocks of wordplay. If you like cerebral rap music, Sand has been your man for some time now, but if you just wanted to turn your brain off, the dissonance of his bars and the aggro-quality of some of his beats might not keep your interest...
- pitchfork.com
2013-08-08
★★★★★
Chance the Rapper: Acid Rap (free download) His flow a cartoon whine, his wordplay wittily associative, his affect educated ghetto, and his main life experiences rising in the rap game, zonking on cannabis and lysergic, and surviving a battle zone, he projects an anxiety that has recognizable cognates among alt-rock waste-os with a lot less to be afraid of...
- social.entertainment.msn.com
2013-06-29
★★★★★
Homeboy Sandman Kool Herc: Fertile CrescentBy Ryan B. PatrickDon't call Homeboy Sandman slept on, call him super-prolific; he's so fast heads have trouble keeping up. The Queen, NY MC delivers Kool Herc: Fertile Crescent, which arrives hot on the heels of 2012's First of a Living Breed. Familiarity does not breed contempt in this case -- by making this EP reverent to the god-level DJ, who parlayed a '70s era South Bronx sound into the template for contemporary hip-hop, Homeboy Sandman uses the...
- exclaim.ca
2013-05-18
★★★★★
Fertile Crescent is a dense, well-executed EP that celebrates Hip Hop's original creativity in Homeboy Sandman's own avant-garde fashion. Homeboy Sandman has long established himself as a forward thinking emcee. His uniquely off-kilter voice and delivery often yields an inspiringly experimental set of flows and cadences. And despite the fact that he has long grown into his own, his relentless progress and enthusiasm as an artist is consistently on full-display...
- www.hiphopdx.com
2013-05-18
★★★★★
7
Critical Mass
Release Date: May 14, 2013Label: Stones Throw
Homeboy Sandman / Photo by Gavin Thomas Last month, Hot 97 morning-show host, notoriously aggressive "real hip-hop" defender, and professional Nicki Minaj antagonizer Peter Rosenberg released the pointedly titled free mixtape New York Renaissance...
- www.spin.com
2013-05-18
★★★★★
This EP marks the first in a series of proposed projects where Homeboy Sandman works exclusively with one producer. The Aztext did the same thing for their "Who Cares If We're Dope?" series, to good results. It's nice to have the cohesion of a rapper working with a single producer, and the EP format ensures that the idea doesn't get worked into the ground. For this installment, Homeboy Sandman is working with producer El RTNC, who has produced for Mos Def and De La Soul as Rthentic...
- rapreviews.com
2013-04-30
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