Gimme Shelter

Ever since he's been living on the street, things have been going great for rapper Sensational. "Now things is getting incorporated, things is getting upgraded," he says. "From Pumas to Bentleys, from gold to platinum, diamonds. Y'know what I'm saying?" Although he admits that taking care of business is hard without a telephone, Sensational isn't concerned about mundane shit like brushing his teeth or wearing clean socks. The 25 year-old homeless wonder from Brooklyn has recently released two singles on Matador Records, "Party Jumping" and "Beats and Rhymes," as well as a new footlong, Heavyweighter. Shooting commences in the spring for a movie about his life, but this is just the beginning. "I'm just waitin' until, you know, I get in the right position so I can have a whole world develop and knock this world out da box. Just move this world over. If you ain't comin' to this world, you's fucked up on that world." Sensational keeps it really, really real. After all, this is a kid who cut a record with the Jungle Brothers when he was just fifteen years-old (under the pseudonym Torture) and recorded his first album using headphones as a microphone. It's sadly ironic that he still doesn't have a place to lay his head at night just as things are finally heating up. How long has he been a bum? "I can't remember like the time frame," he says, his eyes opening so wide I'm half scared they're gonna pop out at me. "Cuz I be zoning out. All this could be like one day. This whole fuckin' life could be like one day to me." Sure he's from the streets like Oscar the Grouch, but he sometimes crashes at his friends' places. "Something like that, yeah. What I do is I take my mind for shelter. That's where I really be stayin' at, cuz I know that's a beautiful place." Sensational's transient junkyard-dog lifestyle isn't for keeps cuz he's aware that, in the words of Iggy Pop, "every motherfucker's gotta have a home, boy." Even though things be getting mad incorporated these days, Sensational still has his eyes on the future. "I plan on having a house full of ladies. All of us, livin' together, just happy being us. But right now, I'm homeless right now. I'm looking for a big house, not a little house, I'm putting things in order, y'know what I'm sayin?" "Party Jumping" and "Beats and Rhymes" (Matador) and Heavyweighter (WordSound) are out now.