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Prolific rapper Homeboy Sandman looks inward for his latest rhymes

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Homeboy Sandman
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Zoneil Maharaj

Monotony might be Homeboy Sandman’s worst enemy. With 17 releases and counting since 2007, the Queens MC has put on a dynamic display of verbal gymnastics, toying with the English language as if he invented it. He continuously experiments with cadence, delivery and subject matter, so that no two songs ever sound the same. He might take a leisurely stroll on one song, then break your ankles as you try to keep up on the next.

“That’s inherent to my creative energy,” he says over the phone from his New York home. “There’s a lot going on in my mind; there’s a lot going on in this world. I could rhyme about something new every time; I could rhyme in a different way every time. … I’m not a proponent, and I don’t want to encourage or contribute to the ill tunnel vision and consolidation of thought. That’s not how I get down.”

Where contemporary hip-hop strays further and further away from its point of origin, the 39-year-old Sandman (born Angel Del Villar II) aims at the heart of the genre while still pushing its limits. Perhaps the title of his most recent LP, Dusty, nods to that. It’s vintage in its foundation—sole producer Mono En Stereo’s funky breakbeats and jazz excursions—but polished and pressed in its presentation. Songs like the disco trip “Far Out” and the groovy, horn-filled “Name” are crammed with the rapper’s signature wit and wordplay. But Dusty also represents an excavation.

“When I go sit down and write, I’m trying to find another piece of myself or another piece of my psyche or another type of id,” he says.

He wrote Dusty in what he describes as a self-imposed exile, shutting himself off from a lot of people and tuning out what was happening in the world—and looking inward. “You may ask me what about the government lying/I would answer to you that’s your problem not mine,” he raps on “Yes Iyah,” offering the line as an example of the space he was in.

“When I first did the record, I was thinking, ‘Yo, I’m in a great place,’ because I was thinking, I’m free of all this moral burden, but I’m happy I’m coming out,” he says.

Homeboy Sandman is an Ivy League-educated ex-teacher, so rap isn’t a cash grab for him. “I don’t do music because I have to make money,” he says. “The records I’ve been making recently, they’re saving my life every day.”

And he says he’s unbothered by not getting played on mainstream radio or going viral on social media. “I feel at my best when I remember that success is making great art,” he says.

HOMEBOY SANDMAN With Quelle Chris, Late for Dinner, Rasar, Slump Lords. February 9, 8:30 p.m., $10-12. Bunkhouse Saloon, 702-982-1764.

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