#8
First of A Living Breed by Homeboy Sandman
Rapid-fire rapper Homeboy Sandman is modest and bright, brash and focused. After a series of acclaimed street releases, the Queens-based rapper has released a debut album that announces who he is with flair and gusto. “Illuminati” is a sleepy production that will please conspiracy theorists and “Mine All Mine” is a rolling masterpiece, with Sandman spitting brilliant stream-of-conscious raps. Sandman is a rapper’s rapper, but one who downplays the requisite ego-centricity for introspection and raising questions. And on the brilliant “Not Really,” he deconstructs his own relative success in a way unseen in hip hop since early Kanye West. With far less narcissism.
