all photos by Nate "Igor" Smith

ICP and the Geto Boys, together at last

There's the Juggalo whose annual tradition is barbecuing naked, except for an apron. There's the Juggalo who walked all the way to the Gathering from Oregon. There's the Juggalo with the Batman mask, the Speedo, and the protruding belly named Mikey who dressed that way on a dare. There's the devil Juggalo, the Bane Juggalo, the babydoll Juggalo. They're only a handful of the Juggalos we met this past weekend at the 13th annual Gathering in Cave-in-Rock, Illinois. Meet the rest.

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Juggalo wisdom

It's an annual tradition to tag the Port-a-Potties and shower trailers at the Gathering of the Juggalos. This year was no different, except that the graffiti's message shifted from its usual slate of insular rallying cries ("Whoop Whoop," "Down With the Clown," etc.) to focus on this past year's major development: the FBI's insistence that Juggalos are a national 'gang' who pose a security threat to this nation. Insane Clown Posse begs to differ, announcing on Friday they will challenge this gang-list distinction in court; as Shaggy 2 Dope told us "We're doing the American thing--we're suing." Juggalos don't agree either, and have a point: who's really the gang here?

Please enjoy the rest of this weekend's FBI-related graffiti below. Also, "Fuck the FBI" accented with a smiley face? Essential Juggalo.

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Nate "Igor" Smith

The faces of Juggalo justice: "Juggalo lawyer" Farris Haddad, Violent J, and Shaggy 2 Dope

"At first, I laughed! Just like everybody else," Insane Clown Posse's Violent J admits, seated on his tour bus. "Now I just realize how fucked up it is." It's this past Friday afternoon at the Gathering of the Juggalos and the Detroit horrorcore emcee is recalling his initial reaction to the news that the federal government officially considers his band's fans a national security threat. Less than 30 minutes ago, Violent J and his partner-in-rhyme Shaggy 2 Dope announced their plans to sue the FBI at their annual seminar and they're both still visibly reeling from the audience's joyously moving reaction. (Shaggy got goosebumps. Violent J's hand visibly shook.)

Spend an hour wandering around the Gathering and you'll hear story after story after story about cops, schools, and bureaucracies discriminating against Juggalos for wearing Insane Clown Posse gear and their label's Hatchetman logo. There's the guy who lost his kids to a foster home because of his tattoo. There's the Juggalo who was discharged from the United States military for having a Psychopathic Records CD. There's the Wisconsin kid who was forbidden from wearing Insane Clown Posse shirts to school, but didn't have money for new clothes, so he kept getting suspended.

"I know it's just Juggalos and to a lot of people out there, that's the lowest life form," acknowledges Violent J. "But they're being fucked with heavily. And this is some extraordinary shit that's happening to us."

The FBI's distinction also has personal and professional implications for the two entertainers: If their fanbase is a gang, that effectively makes them kingpins. For two fathers and ruthlessly independent company owners with real families and real names (Joe Bruce is Violent J, Joey Utsler is Shaggy), the 'gang' stigma could have seriously crippling consequences.

"You're trying to grow love in your country and shit," says Shaggy 2 Dope. "Then the head of your country--the FBI--just turns around and fucking kicks you in the nuts. How are you supposed to respond to that?" He and J could only identify one option. "We're doing the American thing--we're suing."

An edited excerpt of our conversation follows.

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This is an actual figure from a U.S. government document.

Last week, the U.S. Marshal's Service issued a press release with this headline: "Gang Member Removed from New Mexico's Most Wanted." The apprehended menace in question was 20-year-old Mark Anthony Carlson, a white 140-pound male wanted on a felony bench warrant for missing probation. His gang affiliation? The "Insane Clown Posse 'Juggalo'" gang.

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Danny Brown is down with the clown

The highlights of Danny Brown's 2012 summer performance schedule are fairly predictable bookings for the sort of skinny-jeans Fool's Gold rapper who's a part of what SPIN's taken to calling Rap's New Underground: Berlin's street-fashion orgy Bread & Butter, Chicago's indie party Pitchfork Festival, this past weekend's nu-rave grind Hard Summer. But then this Thursday, the Detroit lifer will play Insane Clown Posse's Gathering of the Juggalos, a five-day psycho-porn amusement park that Tom Green once compared to the cinematic disease-apocalypse 28 Days Later.

"It's kind of cool to me," Brown admitted to us last week over the phone. "I was like, 'Damn, you know, that's kind of crazy.'"

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photo by Nate "Igor" Smith

Clown-fingers crossed "Ghetto Rainbows" is a sequel to "Miracles."

On August 14, Insane Clown Posse will deliver their 12th studio album, The Mighty Death Pop! The last time Detroit's finest punching bags released a full-length original album, September 2009's Bang! Pow! Boom!, they gave the world "Miracles," an unintentionally hilarious viral-video ode to giraffes, "fucking rainbows," and the magic of natural phenomena that brought the wicked harlequins a flood of renewed mainstream attention/derision. Throughout the ultimately favorable 18 months that followed -- as Insane Clown Posse went from mean-spirited meme to unlikely Jack White collaborator to Kitchen-sponsored performance-art indulgence -- the facepainted white-rap scrubs haven't had a new traditional product to sell. So the Saturday Night Live ribbing, the George Lopez cameo, the recent Tosh.0 appearance has mostly been a result of ICP's evergreen existence, bolstered by those unbelievably unbelievable YouTube clips and the band's annual tradition of staging the Gathering of the Juggalos -- a primal, affordable, independent, and somewhat hazardous music festival that atrocity-minded tourists could easily infiltrate.

So what to make of the fact that Insane Clown Posse will finally have a new product on shelves of your local Best Buy? One with guest appearances by Color Me Badd, Ice Cube, and Kreayshawn, plus covers of Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" and Tears for Fears' "Shout"? One with tracks entitled "Juggalo Juice" and "Scrubstutite Teachers"?

Let's not answer that now. Let us instead examine The Mighty Death Pop!'s contents.

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Throw your dubs up, this year's Juggomercial has finally arrived. It's 23 minutes long, confirms most of the performers we mentioned on Friday, and casts the Gathering of the Juggalos as the one remaining safe haven from the "sell-out zombies" who dominate the mainstream. "Freedom still exists here with us!," beckons Psychopathic security man Chop. "Originality still exists here with us!" Originality is one way to describe this list of names that would basically never appear together anywhere else in the entire universe:

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Never forget 2011

If the Internet meme machine has seemed a little slow this summer, it's probably because the Gathering of the Juggalos is less than a month away and Insane Clown Posse's industrious label, Psychopathic Records, has yet to release 2012's endlessly watchable Juggomercial. That's already more than a month later than last year, when the 27-minute "earf"-bound spaceship scene revealed the nearly complete line-up on June 3. But this time around, the Midwestern company has not only been preoccupied with the upcoming release of ICP's next studio album, The Mighty Death Pop, but its Michigan headquarters just endured a days-long power outage. So even though we haven't been able to watch Sugar Slam narrate this year's bill, a handful of booked performers have separately announced their Cave-In-Rock commitments. This amounts, as usual, to an amazingly random list of names that would basically never appear together anywhere else in the entire universe.

So far:

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Estevan Oriol

Midwestern rapper Tech N9ne: "My publicist knows a woman can get more out of me."

Midwestern rap weirdo Tech N9ne had an unexpected guest spot on Lil Wayne's Tha Carter IV last year ("Interlude" with Andre 3000), but the 40-year-old Kansas City motormouth's most memorable track has to be "Areola," his 2009 not-at-all-joking breast anthem that comes with its own anatomy lesson ("Don't know what I'm talkin 'bout/ That circle around the skittle/ In the middle you put in your mouth," explains guest Big Krizz Kaliko) and has turned into the live-show tradition of Tech's female fans proudly flashing proudly along to the chorus.

But Tech N9ne isn't one-trick Spencer Gifts schtick. On his own 14-year-old independent label Strange Music, the man born Aaron Dontez Yates has released 10 records in 11 years, rapidfire verses about lost nights ("Blur") and emotional nadirs ("Suicide Letters"), and sold over a million records without mainstream support. He's built a hugely loyal following of "Technicians" through relentless touring, which has most recently taken shape as the wildly ambitious Hostile Takeover Tour—90 dates in 90 days that brings him to the Highline Ballroom this Sunday.

We spoke with Tech N9ne on Day 73. He told us, at dizzyingly cordial length, about Lil Wayne, women, collaborating with the Doors, what he thinks about all the Juggalos who love him.

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Nate "Igor" Smith

Your home away from home: Lake Hepatitis.

Happy Juggalo Day! That's at least what Insane Clown Posse and Psychopathic Records are calling today, February 17, 2012. Why? "Because we say it is!"

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