A layered wordsmith, Queens rapper Homeboy Sandman was born to a boxing father who emigrated from the Dominican Republic to New York and fought on the heavyweight circuit. Retiring undefeated, Sandman's dad then went to law school to become a community lawyer, a path the son would follow for three years before dropping out. At first, it was to become a teacher, but just moonlighting as an MC wasn't enough, so with the 2007 release of his debut EP, Nourishment, he went with hip-hop full-time. After Nourishment 2 (Second Helpings) expanded the EP to album length, his official debut album, Actual Factual Pterodactyl, followed in 2008. DJ Spinna and Ski Beats would both lend a hand to his 2010 album, The Good Son, released the same year that Sandman would be featured as an aspiring rapper's mentor on the MTV reality television series Made. In 2011 he signed with Stones Throw and released the Subject: Matter EP. His first full-length for the label, 2012's First of a Living Breed, featured production from the likes of Oh No, rthentic RTNC, Oddisee, and Jonwayne.