Sy Shackleford“Poet Laureate II”, the closing track on Canibus’ 2003 “Rip the Jacker” album, began with a dialogue sample from James Dickey which challenged the concept of ‘writer’s block’: “I don’t understand how a writer can get ‘writer’s block’ so-called. My problem is having too much and being unable to get it down.” This applies to Homeboy Sandman as, between last year’s “Rich II” and now, he’s released five different projects. With the “Manners” EP, this is the third project he’s dropped in 2025. He’s been a busy man, juggling guest verses along with a European tour and still finding time for his own musical ventures. Produced entirely by Brand the Builder, the album cover is a painting suggestive of a children’s book.
Consisting of four tracks under three minutes each, Brand and Homeboy make the most with the time they’ve allotted for themselves. They waste none and begin with the EP’s the first single, “Infinite Pockets”, which is a callback to the aforementioned Canibus track in the sense that it’s at 60-70 (tops) non-stop bars over a bass and drum beat combined with lo-fi-synths. He caps it off with “I rock for Gs And not for Gs And rock fatigues And not fatigued”. “Yo” is the most layered of Brand’s production with horn, flute, and piano samples well-placed. Lyrically, Homeboy raps with a cadence that sounds very similar to Masta Ace and that only adds to the track’s cinematic atmosphere:
He rocks a nasal flow over a guitar/hi-hat backdrop on “Artillery”, which features Georgia Anne Muldrow rapping with the going-for-broke desperation of Ghostface Killah. The album closer “Bazaar” is pure boom-bap and wordplay, particularly with these bars: “Sometimes I go lefty to keep me in the present / If it’s worthwhile I get a “E” for effort / If it ain’t me I get a “F” for it”. Usually, for me, a Homeboy Sandman project is hit-or-miss in terms of overall quality, but “Manners” (short length notwithstanding) veers towards the former.