Law Breakers come back to make a push for their “fundamental,” high-energy style of hip hop
By Kurt Beyers
After a layoff of around nine years, The Infamous Crackhead, also known as Damian Wheeler, and the revived Law Breakers are back with two albums featuring their unique brand of hip hop.
“Girls Everywhere,” a charged, jazzy hip hop party track about women and Damian’s love and respect for them, is the featured release from World Domination.
“It’s not on the nasty side, where much of music has been going, you know? It’s something that represents the love that I have for women. It’s just an all around, good-feeling vibe,” he said. A video is in the works.
The two albums, Ground Zero is the other, “are an eclectic mix of different vibes,” said Damian.
“World Domination has some conscience and some street tracks that have different things. Ground Zero is an album of growth, a mix of stuff that makes you think about things.” The contrast he draws between his music and others is between “fundamental rap” and “destruction rap.”
“Ground Zero is basically about different things, different goals and different avenues of people. It can take you on a ride, if you want to be taken on a ride.”
The tracks showcase a group of skilled, talented hip hop artists who clearly enjoy themselves in creating and recording their work. The beats are trippy and fast, the rap clear and forceful. The explicit parts are in some of the words themselves attitudes toward people. Institutions, yes, like governments and war in the track “World Domination.”
The group’s lyrics are full of ideas about people — the way they live, the things they do — love, class, race, space and many other things.
“I’ve never been the type of guy that follows everyday trends and stuff like that. Trends and fads fade away. I try to have fun with the music. I’m not trying to be labeled as something, I want to just be an artist and bring back fun and lyrics, and also bring some realism. Music is universal, something that’s going to get into your soul if you just let it be.”
Damian (The Infamous Crackhead) and The Law Breakers are reconstituted from several earlier versions, beginning almost 20 years ago with a 12-member group called “Speakers of the House.”
He was the DJ and beat maker, and that was where he got the Infamous Crackhead name, not because he did the drug but because he was so hyper on, behind and off stage. He liked it and it stuck. He has been DJing and making music since, though he is only now making a determined push to promote the music of The Law Breakers.
He cites the DJ experience as a big factor in the variety. His work is in the hip hop genre, or alternative hip hop, and hardcore, he says, but “My background is so diverse because I’m a DJ, so when you hear my music, you’re going to hear rock, you’re going to hear jazz, you’re going to hear blues, you're going to hear country, you’re going to hear so many different sounds.”
Life on the streets took its toll, “casualties of war,” says Damian, and most of the early group members are gone now. The current Law Breakers are The Infamous Crackhead; his partners Chronic Kid, Joe Black and brother Joe Slick; his godbrother, The Minister; and a cousin, P Storm.
His nine years away from music was spent mainly caring for his father, who passed away about nine months ago, but he never lost the dream of music. His father’s dying words to him, he said, were, “Don’t give up, Son. Go for it all.”
He credits his parents, Clarence E. Wheeler Jr. and his mother, who is still with him, Jean H. Wheeler, for their encouragement and support.
The tracks on World Domination and Ground Zero are music he has had out for a couple of years, but it is music that he is only now able to promote, with the nine-year layoff and the interruptions of the pandemic years. But he has a wealth of material ready to go.
Lost in the Concrete Jungle, which he plans to drop in June, will be new, unreleased songs. He will release a single from that album, “Rat.” Beyond that, he has enough material for several more albums.
Stay connected to The Law Breakers on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts as they “go for it all.”
https://youtube.com/@thelawbreakersghettopropsp68
https://youtube.com/@GhettoProps
https://www.facebook.com/ghettoprops?mibextid=LQQJ4d
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