On this episode of SwitchedOnPop, journalist and converted Insane Clown Posse fan nathanrabin explains the appeal of a group once derided as a “magnet for ignorance”
Illustration: Iris Gottlieb For more than 20 years, Insane Clown Posse has convened an annual festival known as much for its mayhem as its music, and in just a few days, this year’s Gathering of the Juggalos will kick off its 2021 edition in Ohio. ICP’s songs are hyperviolent and profane; their stage show features grotesque clown makeup and blasting the audience with their favorite drink, Faygo soda.
For the second episode of our summer-festival series, we dig into the sound of Insane Clown Posse to ask, Is their music really as bad and offensive as all the critics say, and what’s the public missing that ICP’s fans are hearing? To find out, Nate Sloan asked someone who knows firsthand: journalist Nathan Rabin, the author of two books on ICP and a Juggalo convert.You became interested in ICP and Juggalo culture as a disinterested reporter, or maybe even as a slightly biased reporter.
Not what you would expect from the most hated band in the world. A lot of people judge Juggalos without really knowing anything about them. I was one of those people and then I had to experience it myself in order to have a richer understanding of what the whole scene is about. Violent J [one-half of ICP, alongside Shaggy 2 Dope] has a great line: “The colder it is on the outside, the warmer it is on the inside,” and it is never warmer than it is at the Gathering of the Juggalos “Down With the Clown.”
On your most recent trip to the Gathering, you wrote, “The Gathering of the Juggalos is still a cesspool of depravity, of nakedness and open drug use and gleeful profanity, but it has become a very nice cesspool of depravity. It is defined as much by its sincerity as its hedonism. It’s a rare open space for men, scraggly, bearded, manly men, to express love and appreciation for other men … without fear of being judged soft or weak.” I love that description.
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