Love & Hate: Homeboy Sandman Interview
AGM: You talked about this a little bit in the last question, but you’re kind of vocal about what you think is wack, or what you don’t think is made by musicians. What really bothers you about the music that’s being made out there?
HS: I hate music about killing niggas. Because, that’s horrible. I hate the word nigga, because that’s a terrible word that means, like, less than human. Like, we can just rape your sister in front of you and you try to protect her we’ll burn you alive. So, I hate music about killin niggas – you couldn’t get people to rap about killin niggas unless you got black people to do it. You wanna do something bad to black people, you get black people to do it.
“I can’t stand crime, I can’t stand hate, I can’t stand rape, I can’t stand murder, I can’t stand any of this terrible stuff that somehow people think is cool because they hear it on records.”
I mean I just hate music about selling drugs – I hate music about despicable things. I used to be a high school teacher and I’d go into class, and sometimes I’d rhyme with these kids and they sittin’ here spitting rhymes about crime, and just horrible behavior. Misogynistic, disrespectful, cowardly behavior, and this is from the nonsense that’s being streamed into their heads.
The main purpose of the dissemination of hip hop music now is plain wise tactic. Nobody thinks these cats are the best rappers. I hate when people are like, “That’s what sells.” Of course that’s what sells; that’s all they’re sellin! You go to the supermarket and all they’re sellin’ is hamburgers, all they’re gonna sell is hamburgers. If they’re selling oranges, that’s all that’s gonna sell.
Good music has always sold. The best selling album of all time is Thriller. It’s music about love. They don’t even let people hear that no more, God forbid we love each other. And I’m talking about brown people. Brown people in this country have always been just to churn out money, that’s all we for. You know, low overhead. It is all about money. Shit, if you can sell some music, and sell some clothes, and sell some chains, and get a whole bunch of money in the prison industrial system then you know, that’s a whole lot of money.
It’s different for people who live in the inner-city where this music is born. This music is creating our reality, we aren’t creating it no more. It used to go from us, to the radio, and then we let them go from the radio to us and we act a fool if they show us acting a fool.
I can’t stand anything that’s anti-black, man, or anti-brown, or anti-love, or anti-white, or anti-anything. I can’t stand crime, I can’t stand hate, I can’t stand rape, I can’t stand murder, I can’t stand any of this terrible stuff that somehow people think is cool because they hear it on records.
AGM: That’s real. That’s what’s up. So, going back to the record, one of the real stand-out tracks was “Not Pop”, I thought that joint was really dope. Was that a reaction to anything?
HS: Thank you, good looking out. You know, I’m a very hard worker and people are taking notice of me more and more, and I’m coming into contact more and more with the type of people that have various suggestions for how I’m to accelerate my visibility. Some of these are, “Yo, you gotta fit more into the mold,” you know, “This is what they want, this is what they ready for.”
But, that record was inspired by a lot of that. These oddballs coming out trying to tell me that I’m not “this” enough, or I’m not “that” enough. All of it is based on fear, man, fear of doing something new, fear of doing something creative.
But, I also talk about my music, and it will always be based on the foundation of truth, the foundation of no compromise, not adhering to some formula. And, it’s something to be taken seriously. You know there’s a lot of fraudulence in this music and that’s what I’m touching on in this record. “Claim they can’t market us, market what?/We already all in the clubs.”
The “Not Pop”, it’s a mission statement. I want my music to be on every station, I want my records to be on every channel. I want my music to be heard by every ear in the world, you know. Pop doesn’t mean successful. Pop, to me, is talking about cookie-cutter. Pop is talking about temporary, not long-lasting. Cliché is pop. Made with appealing to everybody in mind is pop.
I like what De La said, “It might blow up, it won’t go pop.” I like when Q-Tip said, “Rap is not pop, if you call it that then stop.” I’m not saying I don’t want to be known the world over, because that doesn’t make sense, but compromising – dancing for these clowns – is not the move.
AGM: So, who do you think is to blame for the music that’s so negative?
HS: People ask me who the “they” is. And if I knew who the “they” was, I would go to their house right now. There’s people who we don’t know who they are that run this show. They run this show. There are all types of things that take place. I’m talking about from government, from media, that run this show and have been running this show for a long time.
I’m into what people call this conspiracy theory, which is really just trying to figure out what’s going on. But, there’s people behind the scenes determining how to keep everybody in line. This media, mass media, is still pretty new; How long has the TV been around? Since like the ’50′s or something, and I don’t know how long the radio has been around, probably like the 40′s or something, but never before have you been able to brainwash the entire world so easily.
I don’t know who it is, but they don’t care about me. And they’re the same people that was burnin’ my ancestors. The minute I find out how to get at these cats faster than the way I’m doing now, that’ll be the last rhyme I wrote.
AGM: If you keep putting out music that’s positive, do you think people will pick up on that positive message, or will they just disregard it and go for what’s more prevalent?
HS: It’s unstoppable. I used to bring in music to my kids, and at first they were like, “Yo, what is this?” I remember the first one I brought in was the Mos Def, “Beef is not what Jay-Z said to Nas/Beef is when the working people can’t find jobs.” And, they were like “Yo, who is this? We don’t listen to this. We listen to Rapper X-Y-and-Z.” But, by the end of the week, they were like, “Yo, what you bringing in next week?”
The example I always pull out is Common. Common put out Finding Forever, Finding Forever was the number-one record in the country. Not even the number one hip hop record. The number one record in the country. Okay, this is a hip hop artist: Couldn’t get one spin on Hot 97 or Power 105 in New York City. This is the birthplace of hip hop! Okay, these are the two main hip hop stations in New York City, you’re telling me you’ve got an artist that’s the number one album in the world as an MC and he can’t get no spin on the commercial radio stations in New York City? But, that’s what happens. They go out of their way to make sure cats don’t hear what’s good.
The fact of the matter is, they know that this is undeniable. That’s why there’s people working around the clock to make sure nobody hears my record.
AGM: Let’s change subjects a little bit. I saw that Subway joint you did a little while ago. How did that come about?
HS: That was a brother by the name of Jamie from Innovation Talent Agency, and he’s worked at MTV a little while and when MTV partnered up with Subway to do this, they brought him in to find people that’s on the cusp. It was supposed to be artists that’s fresh – and it wasn’t just music, there were graphic artists and things – but it was artists that are kind of on the cusp, on their radar but doing good things.
And Jamie was aware of my music, from some other things, and that’s the way it works. My team consists of a few people that’s close to me that help me out as much as they can. But, it’s only been this album that we’ve got a publicist and we got someone that’s doing radio [distribution]. But all the things we’ve been able to accomplish from MTV to Subway, to the magazines, and all of these things are from people just saying, “Yo, these cats are hot, let me put them on without even knowing them.”
We don’t have a lot of the resources that other cats have. But, we’ll do the hip hop festival two years in a row and nobody even knows us, because Wes Jackson loves hip hop and he heard us. We’ll be on Hot 97 with Pete Rosenberg because Pete Rosenberg loves hip hop and he knows us. So, anybody who really loves hip hop, they support us and those are the people that we really need.
AGM: So how does that fit in with the whole scheme of commercial music putting out negativity, if you got Subway and MTV putting you on. What does that mean?
HS: You know people talk about the Subway thing like it was Homeboy Sandman doing a Subway commercial, when it was obviously Subway doing a Homeboy Sandman commercial.
Keeping that in mind, at that point, I was vegan, and I put out a rhyme and I say specifically in the rhyme that they don’t have the food I eat here and I told them, “I’m gonna say this, no disrespect.”
The only reason I even decided to do this was because it’s a healthy option. I’m very anti-crown, anti-McDonalds, and all of that. I’ve got a song, “Fuel”, where I talk about that. So, I liked how Subway did have a vegan option; they had a vegan sandwich.
But that’s not even to say – take MTV, because MTV has been a major conduit for many of the things that I can’t stand. But, like the first time I was in The Source, I got Unsigned Hype, right? I remember picking up that issue, and looking through that issue and being like, “Yo, this mag has so much garbage in it.” But, I would love to do a tour with Rapper-X. And, whoever Rapper-X is that comes to your mind – the dude you know I can’t stand from what I’ve been saying – but, I would love to do a tour with that dude, because people at his show, they need to hear me the most.
People who read The Source, they need to see me the most. I did a show the other day with Trey Songz and Fabolous. Like, “Yo, how did you wind up on that?”, and the truth is there were people in the crowd like, “You don’t really rap like these dudes,” but the point is I’m not about preaching to the choir. I love my people that feel the same way and spread the word, but like I said, I want my records to be everywhere. I can’t stand BET, if someone came to me and gave me the option, we’ll either shut down BET or put you on BET, I would tell them to shut it down.
But, since they’re not giving me that option, the next best one is me being on BET.
AGM: That makes sense. My last question is: You used to be a teacher. If your new album, The Good Sun, had a lesson plan, what would it be?
HS: Dang, I don’t wanna say anything cliché. The first thing I wanna say is the lesson is love and the lesson is faith and the lesson is optimism.
But, the lesson really is truth, man.
And, the lesson really is, if you do what’s right you are unstoppable, you can never fail. If you work hard and you do what you’re supposed to, you can never fail. You can’t have fear, and stop complaining.
I like how Mos Def says, “When there’s something you can change around/Keep quiet you got nothing to complain about,” that’s the Mos Def rhyme. And I quote these cats cause their my influences.
The Good Sun is available now from retailers everywhere. As usual, it’s also available via iTunes.
All photography is original work done on behalf of aboveGround Magazine and may not be re-produced without permission. Photos by Joann Gomez of www.musiclookslikethis.com (Seriously, check her out).
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