photo by Allison Michael Orenstein; inset by Aliya Naumoff

"Tammy Rae Carland and Sleater-Kinney! Vivienne Dick and Insane Clown Posse!"

It's not the first place we'd expect to find Kathleen Hanna's name, but there it is, subtly tacked onto the credits for Neal Medlyn's Wicked Clown Love, a 2012 experimental work "built around the music and culture of hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse, their devoted fan base the Juggalos, and other forms of male bonding and ritual." Showing at the Kitchen next weekend, Wicked Clown Love's hammy event description on the venue Web site elaborates:

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photo by Nate "Igor" Smith

Hey, we're all having fun out here at the 12th annual Gathering of the Juggalos. Why should they be any different?

Related: Photos from the Gathering of the Juggalos 2011

Photos of Juggalette Cuties

Photos of Naked Juggalettes (NSFW)

Check out all of our Gathering of the Juggalos 2011 coverage here

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Once again, Camille Dodero has decided to subject herself to the glorious festival that is the Gathering of the Juggalos, where she's joined by Charlie Sheen, Screech, MC Hammer, Bobby Brown, and more. She'll be posting on the event as the weekend continues, but here are some photos from the Gathering so far—is it just us, or has Dustin Diamond put on a few pounds?

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​Perhaps you are familiar with Rap Genius, a useful interactive site that aims to "discover the meaning of rap lyrics" by painstakingly explaining every single line of various popular tunes -- at press time Lil Wayne's "Hoes & Ladies" is exactly 13 percent explained, with Rick Ross' "Made Men" at a far more manageable 55 percent. (The homepage also currently bears the headline "Lupe Fiasco: The Proust of Rap," which is super promising.) Anyway, as a random example let's take Das Racist's "All Tan Everything," currently sitting at 82 percent, and a veritable treasure trove of useful data.

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The Four Loko Protest And/Or Vigil, Starring Anamanaguchi
Union Square Park
Wednesday, November 17

Better Than: Going down without a fight.

Even before New York banned Four Loko, the energy drink that supplements the caffeine equivalent of three cups of coffee with taurine, guarana, wormwood, and 12-percent ABV, the threat of such a ban had been looming for months. Momentum really started to build by late September, after a new batch of 17- and 18-year-old incoming freshmen found the drink waiting for them at their respective college campuses. Still, few were prepared for the official announcement, and no one could have anticipated the public outcry that has followed. That outcry culminated last night with the Four Loko candlelight vigil, held at Union Square.

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​More than anyone else, producer Lex Luger has had rap's summer on lock. His two booming, window-rattling tracks on Rick Ross's Teflon Don--"MC Hammer" and "B.M.F. (Blowin' Money Fast)"--have been inescapable, from cars to picnics to other rappers, who have repeatedly borrowed both beats. Somewhere in there, Luger completed the trilogy, selling a cousin of the two Ross tracks to the Georgia rapper Waka Flocka; together, they made "Hard In Da Paint," as massive and menacing an anthem as hip-hop has seen in the last few months. Of course, the song was a gauntlet for Ross, who promptly rapped over it himself. Today, the corpulent Miami lightning rod released a video for his remake. It's...disturbing. Ross has been known to go shirtless before. But something about the combination of whatever he's smoking in this video and the vast, jiggling expanse of his ample chest, well--let's just say don't look at his eyes if you want to sleep tonight:

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Photo of Jim Jones covering "Six Pack" at Death By Audio by Rebecca Smeyne.

​Three weeks ago, Dipset capo Jim Jones pulled up at Williamsburg's Death By Audio at around 1:15 a.m. on a Friday night, unfolded his lanky frame out of the passenger seat, strolled through a crowd of befuddled punk rockers, and took the stage with Philly art-rockers Snakes Say Hisss. It made no sense. At the time, all we came away with from Jimmy's surprise performance was a suite of hilarious photographs and a blurry video of Jones rapping "Salute." Now, Damon Dash's Creative Control team have produced a more loving, black and white portrait of the evening. It is equally ridiculous. Behold: made-up gang signs, hipsters making out, a man identified as "David Chang," though we don't think he is, Dame Dash looking bemused, Jones signing an autograph for a girl who looks a lot like Charlene Yi, and maybe the worst version of "Love Me No More" you've ever heard in your life, below.

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So much umbrella dancing.

"An accurate summary of the pagan ritual-meets-Fred Astaire umbrella dancing that became yesterday's BK show," wrote Montreal joke-funk duo Chromeo on Twitter earlier today, about our own Puja Patel's report on the show. (Thanks Chromeo!) But that got us thinking: what does pagan ritual-meets-Fred Astaire umbrella dancing actually look like, in real time? Is that like what they do at Phish shows? Not having seen this species of dance in NYC before (our photographer stuck to portraits, sadly), we went looking for documentation. Luckily, there's tons of it. Gather round and see what Brooklyn looks like when its drunk off rain water and the persecution of the OSA:

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​So Bill Simmons, a/k/a ESPN.com's The Sports Guy, is quite possibly the Internet's most-discussed sportswriter; Freddie Gibbs is a current favorite of the rap-blog conglomerate. Given that Simmons doesn't have much to say about rap (or music generally) beyond the occasional white-guy-making-a-Tupac-reference episode, it seemed odd when he shouted out Gibbs last week on his 1,200,000+-followers Twitter account; my immediate response was to head to Google and find out who the other Freddie Gibbs was. Ah, but no.

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Jim Jones gives punk rock the gas face. All photos by Rebecca Smeyne.

​These are strange, wonderful times for hip-hop fans in New York. Former Roc-a-Fella mogul and Jay-Z cohort Damon Dash is running a modern day version of Warhol's factory out of a rented loft in Tribeca. Curren$y kills time at Bubby's, down the street (where the other day we dined, in close proximity to Jay and Beyonce). And Harlem's Jim Jones, once and future Dipset capo, will happily jet across the river and crash gnarly DIY punk shows. At least, he did on Friday night, where the impossibly resilient Less Artists More Condos/Under 100 kids threw a party featuring Lionshare, Tough Knuckles (featuring Under 100's Ariel Panero on guitar), Das Racist, and Snakes Say Hisss, who brought Jones out for a supremely awkward and awesome cameo appearance at the end of the night, right before the cops showed up. In the back was Damon Dash himself, looking on with pride--an increasingly regular, though no less shocking, sight at DIY shows citywide. Intrepid photographer Rebecca Smeyne was there, of course; her photos and a bit of crazy-looking video are below.

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