How long has icp been rapping

We wanna say, 'Go to heaven. Don't fuck up. The more Utsler left and Bruce are shunted to the margins, the more their misfit fans love them. Photo: Brent Humphreys. To get an idea of what Juggalo heaven would look like, you must burrow through deep woods to an isolated campground at Cave-In Rock, an aptly named village near the Illinois-Kentucky border.

After several long, desolate stretches of road, all tethers to the outside world start to break away: Cell phone bars shrivel to mere nubs, like an unfinished game of hangman. Luckily, to find the Gathering of the Juggalos, all you need to do is listen for the whoops. They can be heard from the edges of the campsite and come in three varieties:.

It usually denotes a special occasion, such as a Psychopathic artist walking through the crowd or a woman removing her top. Despite the constant auditory stimuli, the Gathering is, in some ways, aggressively mellow. This is a bit of a revelation, given that an ICP-sponsored documentary, A Family Underground , portrays the event as a cavalcade of backyard wrestling brawls and partial nudity.

These do exist, as does an open narcotics market, called the Bridge, where revelers peddle everything from pot to ecstasy to coke the park is private property, so no cops are allowed.

And things get more ominous at night, when the combination of drugs, face paint, and rented wheels turns the Gathering of the Juggalos into something resembling a Cormac McCarthy-designed game of Mario Kart. But at times the event is downright family-friendly. During the day, Bruce emcees a Beach Boys-themed dance party. Entire families line up to get ICP jerseys and even pregnant bellies signed at the autograph tent, while Juggalos cavort on a dock atop a body of water so nasty-looking that it's been dubbed Lake Hepatitis.

And of course there's the music, with artists like Naughty by Nature and Warren G plus the occasional throwback like Vanilla Ice or stand-up comic Gallagher performing late into the night.

Despite a sizable population of female fans dubbed Juggalettes , ICP's following is made up mostly of young white men from working-class backgrounds. They tend to feel that they've been misunderstood outsiders their whole lives, whether for being overweight, looking weird, being poor, or even for just liking ICP in the first place.

It's a world where man boobs are on proud display, where long-hairs and pink-hairs mingle, where nobody makes fun of the fat kid toweling off near Lake Hepatitis. For them, the Gathering is a place they can be accepted, a feeling reinforced by the constant chants of the Juggalo credo "Fam-uh-LEE!

Like most Juggalos, Wolff and Lewter began listening to ICP as teenagers, and anyone perplexed by the band's continued success would do well to recall just how alienating those years can be. Bruce and Utsler haven't forgotten this pain.

It's an image ICP pushes constantly, pimping otherness with its "Most Hated Band" T-shirts and middle-of-nowhere confab, and it's undoubtedly the single biggest factor in ICP's success.

With so many artists pitching a lifestyle of aspirational fabulosity, ICP extols the virtue of average-shmo egalitarianism, even if the actual ICP members don't live an entirely down-and-out life these days. Put all of these outsiders together with a heaping dose of us-versus-them and you have a tried-and-true formula for creating an insular subculture—just ask any tea-partyer.

And at the Gathering there really is a sense of unity. Until there isn't. Throughout the day, there were rumors that Tequila was going to be attacked by the crowd—despite Bruce and Utsler asking everyone to leave her alone. Yet within minutes of taking the stage, Tequila is pelted with debris, chairs, and even feces from an outhouse. She removes her top, hoping to win over the crowd, but is forced, after being bloodied, into a retreat.

Why was Tequila persecuted while the likes of Vanilla Ice were cheered? It's hard to say. Others see her presence as evidence that the mainstream—after years of not caring about what the Juggalos did out here in the woods—is intruding upon the Gathering, either to poke fun at it or to figure out how to market to it.

But the truth is, for the ICP formula to work there has to be a "them"—and in this case, them is an admittedly grating but thoroughly harmless publicity seeker, one who maybe acts a little too much like the girl who wouldn't date you in high school.

The incident presents an interesting dilemma for ICP, especially as its profile increases: The Gathering is intended as an open-tent party; in fact, that all-inclusiveness might be its biggest draw, greater even than the music and the drugs.

So what happens when the crowd gets too unruly? Like, hot tears shooting out of my eyes. The Fred Fury character is the personification of regret; fighting back and taking control of your destiny is a major theme of the album. Violent J canceled a solo tour last month to continue to tinker with the album; Shaggy, born Joe Utsler, is currently on a solo tour. This is the best we got.

But the hunger for new experiences, both career- and life-wise, continues to push ICP forward. Aggressive Bittersweet Druggy. Energetic Happy Hypnotic.

Romantic Sad Sentimental. Sexy Trippy All Moods. Drinking Hanging Out In Love. Introspection Late Night Partying. Rainy Day Relaxation Road Trip. Romantic Evening Sex All Themes. Articles Features Interviews Lists. Streams Videos All Posts. My Profile. Advanced Search. Artist Biography by John Bush. Formed in Detroit, MI. The Juggalo culture originated from Insane Clown Posse's fanbase and was further developed by other music acts on their record label, Psychopathic Records.

ICP originated as the gangsta rap group Inner City Posse , which was active under this name from to ICP debuted their new name and image in The act was originally a group of four members, but quickly became a 3-piece act when Kid Villain John Rode left and eventually became a duo in , after original member John Kickjazz John Utsler left the group in and his replacement, Greez-E Erik Olson , quit the music industry after leaving the group.

ICP's debut concept album Carnival of Carnage marked the debut of the act's Dark Carnival mythology, which carried over a series of three decks of "Joker's cards," the first deck being produced from to , and the second deck starting in with Bang!

The first two decks consist of six cards each, while the third deck will consist of five cards.