Insane Clown Posse

Insane Clown Posse, in 2017.

Time to put on some Music

Soundtrack

Punk Rock Against Communism Mozart effect Music 2001 Clear Channel memorandum Skinheads

Musicians

Ian Stuart Donaldson Bill Hicks Orrin Hatch Rage Against the Machine Moe Tucker Kanye West v - t - e

Insane Clown Posse (Shaggy 2 Dope, aka Joseph Utsler (1974–), and Violent J, aka Joseph Bruce (1972–)), often shortened to ICP, are a Detroit hip-hop duo, who also are professional wrestling promoters and evangelical Christian preachers. They specialize in a particular over-the-top violent, transgressive hip-hop style known as "horrorcore".

History

Insane Clown Posse was formed in 1989 in Detroit, Michigan. Originally known as "Inner City Posse", the duo decided to adopt their "Dark Carnival" mythos and clown personas in 1991 after Violent J's claims of having a dream about an evil circus that supposedly represented purgatory. In a case of clear serendipity, the mid-1990s were an era where cartoon-ish metal bands such as Green Jellÿ and GWAR (the latter of which used similar over-the-top violence in their elaborate stage shows) were enjoying strong cult popularity. This was enough to garner ICP a major label record deal in 1997. For a few brief years, they flirted with semi-mainstream popularity, playing the ill-fated Woodstock '99 and engaging in several headline-grabbing fights and other shenanigans with various other rappers and bands. By the early 2000s, they were no longer on a major label. Generally speaking, their music was poorly received, often described as the "worst ever", with critics characterizing their rapping as a slew of "secondhand misogyny, grade-Z gore, sexual insecurity and klutzy rhymes". However, their time in the spotlight allowed them to develop a significant cult following, with a strong subculture (maintaining cult popularity to this day) that is probably better known than the music itself.

Fandom

Hardcore fans of Insane Clown Posse are known as Juggalos. For the most part, Juggalos can be seen as an extended, strong music fandom, similar to, say, "deadhead" fans of the Grateful Dead, but with far less LSD and far more clown makeup and Faygo. Unfortunately, a small subset of Juggalo fandom engages in violent behavior and other gang-like activity, enough for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to (perhaps with a whiff of moral panic) classify them as a "loosely organized hybrid gang". That being said, despite a few gangs borrowing Juggalo imagery, a few non-gang related incidents of notoriety (notably an incident in 2010 at the annual "Gathering of the Juggalos" festival where rapper Tila Tequila was pelted with rocks and bottles during her performance), and the atypical sex-and-drugs shenanigans that can occur at the larger ICP festivals, the vast majority of the Juggalo community could best be described as "mostly harmless".

The "gang" classification caused some predictable harassment against Juggalos by law enforcement, as well as some child custody and employment issues. Due to this, ICP and the ACLU unsuccessfully tried to sue the FBI to get this classification removed. Ultimately, this culminated in a Juggalo march on Washington D.C. in 2017. The march took place on the same day as a Donald Trump rally labeled the "mother of all rallies", with The Guardian noting that not only did the Juggalo rally far outdraw the Trump rally, there was a huge contrast between the "upbeat, open-minded" nature of the Juggalo rally, and the Trump rally where supporters were babbling about "Hillary Clinton's emails (and) the need to 'take our country back'".

ICP have commendably taken strong stances against racism, both in their music and within the Juggalo community. On the other hand, their culture has often been criticized for being misogynistic and "increasingly hostile toward women".

Insane Clown Posse on Science

“”"Scientists go, 'I've got an explanation for that.' It's like, fuck you! I like to believe it was something out of this world."

—Violent J

“”" I'm glad that when my kids get strep throat, their doctor doesn't say, "(Bleeping) antibiotics, how do they work?""

—John Keilman

In 2010, ICP took a small break from rapping about over-the-top depictions of gore to create the song "Miracles". Purportedly a reflective song of the marvels of everyday life, the song became their best known song for all the wrong reasons, infamous for its lyrics that seemed to both celebrate ignorance and trash science and knowledge. The song's lyrics wallow in a sort of "God of the gaps" logical fallacy, albeit one in which even things that have had scientific explanations for centuries are now "miracles" for some reason. Lines like "fucking magnets, how do they work?" and "And I don't wanna talk to a scientist / Y'all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed" became infamously repeated and spread on the Internet, to the point where Know Your Meme documented the phenomenon in a YouTube video.

ICP responded to the criticism in a peculiarly anti-intellectual way, dismissing "factual findings" that "explain away the Earth's cool mysteries", and called their critics "big dumb, popular jocks ganging up on the little class clown scrub, when they have no idea the scrub is really a highly skilled, deadly, ninja assassin capable of cleaning their fuckin' clocks." Oh, and of course they were just trollin' and the backlash was anticipated and planned. Right.

Helpfully, an author at Cracked.com created an article to help Juggalos "Learn Their Motherf#@kin' Science" to help explain the scientific explanation behind all of the "miracles" in the song, parodying the foul-mouthed lyrical style of ICP. Less helpfully, ICP responded to hackerspace group Noisebridge's attempt to teach science to ICP fans waiting in line for a San Francisco ICP show by threatening them with physical violence.

Fucking magnets, how do they really work?

Without getting too quantum, Bill Nye helpfully explains magnetism (and also surprisingly has an opinion about Insane Clown Posse, too).