Nobody wants to be around the ghetto breed
But the ghetto got each other and that's all we really need
So what the fuck am I doing down here, I gotta land of my own
Eh yo, dawg, fuck it, huh, we going home – Insane Clown Posse, “I’m Coming Home”

From the Urban Dictionary, a Juggalo is : A fan of the Insane Clown Posse and/or other Psychopathic Records artists. An open minded individual who lives his/her life based on the messages of the six jokers cards.

Yeah, I’m a juggalo. I like Insane Clown Posse. So what? Of all the things I identify with, being an ICP fan is by far the one most looked down upon. Insane Clown Posse have some problematic lines and stances on things, but I am able to go and sift through the bullshit to take out the nuggets of value. I still remember the first few years that ICP were big in Ohio, and how I absolutely hated them – not based off of listening to any of their music, mind you, but the fact that the clown faces were stupid looking. Honestly, how horrid of a reason is it to not listen to music due to a logo? Anyway, I was even given chances to listen to ICP – I still remember hanging out at my then-friend Gina’s house, while “Fuck The World” came onto the stereo, a song that I didn’t hate then. I even dated someone into ICP – a juggalette as you would, named Shannon. Eir would always play the Bizzar CD, which I would mercilessly harass eir about for even having. Whatever value I might have gotten from the disc was negated by the extreme amount of cheating that Shannon did on me – by the time things ended, I wanted to be as far from eir as possible.

Before Muchmusic turned into the abominable piece of Mtv Lite-trite that is Fuse (in the United States), they had a show on that covered all sorts of hard music called Loud. Every few months, Loud would play “Halls of Illusions”, one of the major singles for ICP off The Great Milenko. I finally was able to admit that I liked that track, but it wasn’t like I was addicted to the band yet or anything. That final plunge into the deep end happened in December 2002, right after ICP’s latest album, The Wraith : Shangri-La was release. Trying to keep up with what is happening in major music, I got wind that ICP had turned Christian, and that their new album was completely centered on that topic. My curiosity got the better of me when I was home from college for Christmas Break, and I downloaded the complete album. I waited until I was about ready to crash, and threw on the disc as I laid in bed. The beginning of the CD was pretty good, and I actually was tingling with anticipation by the time that the last track, “Thy Unveiling”, was beginning.

“Thy Unveiling” was not as much of a watershed track as people thought it to be. ICP was not saying that they practiced Christian beliefs, but rather that: “When we speak of Shangri-La, what you think we mean?! / Truth is, we follow GOD! We've always been behind Him / The Carnival is GOD; May all Juggalos find him! [May the Juggalos find Him].” Now, with those lyrics, god can be pretty much anything, whether it is a deity in the Wiccan, Pagan, Satanic, Pentecostal, or Voodoo traditions or not. Hearing these lines for the first time was shocking to me, as I only had the most rudimentary knowledge about the ICP mythology at the time. What really continued to make my juices flow were the last few lines of “Thy Unveiling”, in which J and Shaggy say to : “Always remember to fuck off! Thank you! / Fuck off!” Some juggalos were incredibly hurt by those lines, but to myself, who is always burning bridges, those lines read as dogma. I was hooked.

I immediately set my Soulseek and Imesh to download the rest of ICP’s Joker’s Cards, and would listen to each of those CDs repeatedly. I went back to school, and with my new pile of CDs, would pretty much begin to annoy everyone in my near circle of friends with various facts about ICP (Did you know they actually had three members at one time?), and annoy the rest of the residence hall having the door open and an ICP CD blasting. To put it in perspective, Alyson stopped talking to me soon after I began to listen to ICP. The two events were not related, but a great deal of the pain I was feeling was mirrored in the material covered by ICP, and provided me with an easier access in releasing anger. After burning pretty much everything in the way of ICP and Twiztid CDs, I began to buy used copies of all the CDs’ I had burned. Spending practically $100 to get most of whatever ICP, Twiztid, Blaze Ya Dead Homie, and Anybody Killa put out, I finally felt like I was getting more immersed in the culture, as well as actually gaining family in the massive amount of juggalos that are all around the world.

I may not have had a significant other for a few months, but when I was continually building my Psychopathic records collection (Psychopathic Records is the label of ICP), checking out all the juggalo sites, and chatting on ICP-related rooms, I felt as if I actually had more of a support network than I did in the past. I mean, with all the juggalos around, I knew that I had people in Ohio, Indiana, California, and so many other places that had experienced the same sort of upper-class oppression and revulsion at the current state of society. Even while I was being socialized to join the fraternity, my appreciation for ICP was not to be shaken. In fact, aside from trying to get other pledges to listen to a Psychopathic CD, I even answered a semi-serious question during a rush meeting with an ICP lyric. On the paddle that I got as an gift for joining Delta Chi, my nickname is the title of that song.

When I left DePauw for the summertime, I began re-immersion in my own element, and got back into the punk and revolution culture that I had based my life off of in the past. While I was able to deconstruct exactly why I had joined the fraternity relatively easily, I didn’t challenge my views on my admiration for ICP. First, the reason why I even listened to ICP in the first place was not due to a specific life-changing event; rather, it was the culmination of various circumstances that even got me to listen to The Wraith in the first place, and secondly, I’m not ashamed to like ICP. Where many people began listening to ICP during their younger years, and getting out of it for supposedly more mature types of music, I feel lucky that I was able to lower my previous unfounded beliefs about the band and give it a shot. When I was in 7th grade, I hated a band and what all they stood for due to a logo. Now, a Junior in College, and I think I have progressed a little since then. The Insane Clown Posse may not be the most politically correct thing to ever cross pop culture, but the underlying messages that they espouse are no different from any other established religion : to treat people as you wish to be treated, to live a good life, and revere your family above all.

Taking another line from “Thy Unveiling”, “The messages and hints were there, although, most never picked up on em / We snuck em in subliminally with that wicked shit around em / We mentioned more and more of this on every Joker's Card / The bottom line, always the same, you ain't have to look hard / We wickedly kick it, inflict it, you get it, get wit it, and then we don't preach it flat out.” To reach a larger audience and keep them interested, the Insane Clown Posse has had to construct this street-tough, violent, uncompromising image for the last 12 years. Doing so, they have created a world-wide empire that forwards their beliefs much more successfully than any Christian rap act or Anarchist folk-punk act could. Being a fan of ICP goes much beyond how they may talk about disemboweling their enemies; it is a following of the beliefs they have espoused on each album, and while it is not a religion to me, but rather a good way to live, I feel that being a juggalo does not infringe on my other identities. I can be bumping Twiztid or ICP in the car, and I know that I can still be a queer, still be a feminist, still be an anarchist – and nothing can change that. Thanks go out to http://www.thesixth.com , http://www.faygoluvers.net , the juggalo family, those individuals who actually didn’t lose any respect for me because of my musical tastes, and most of all, to the Insane Clown Posse for providing music that I can so easily identify to!