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Interview found at http://www.launch.com/Features/fs_Start.asp?contentType=INTV&FeatureMode=Interview&contentId=212

The Insane Clown Posse--rappers Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope--were already doing pretty good on their own in the Great Lakes area. They had sold over 300,000 copies of the three albums and various singles they'd released independently. "We didn't go to any record labels 'til they came to us," notes Violent J. The pair was in the enviable position of negotiating for a highly lucrative record deal. The big bucks they chose were offered by a company that they felt really understood their extremely fierce and often comic blend of hardcore rap and heavy rock--Hollywood Records. Unfortunately, Hollywood was owned by the Walt Disney Company, whose policies are infamous for being staunchly right-wing. Disney and ICP were bound to clash, and they did. Six hours after the group's first major-label album, The Great Milenko, was released in June, Disney demanded that the album be pulled from stores. At the time, the company was under fire from conservative Southern Baptists. Coincidence? We think not.
While all this is now ancient history to ICP--they have since gotten another deal, this time with Island, and The Great Milenko has been selling briskly--the group's feud with Disney still rankles J. "Before shows, kids are chanting, 'Fuck Disney!'" he sighs, "and I don't like that. I don't want that to be my whole angle. It worked out to the better that everybody knows who we are now, but I would like to think we'd have got there anyway, without the extra Disney push."

J could be right. It's not often that a group earns the massive and loyal following that ICP had before associating themselves with a major label. The duo's idea--to dress up as rapper clowns and stage what they call the "Dark Carnival"--is a perfect gimmick for the high-concept '90s. Their inspiration rose from growing up on the tough streets of southwest Detroit.

"There's a boat dock in our neighborhood and everybody gets on the boat and they sail it across the Detroit River to this amusement park called BobLo," J explains. "It became a joke to the rest of Michigan that the carnival really begins when you get into southwest Detroit, 'cause that's where you see the freak shows--they were talking about the homeless people, the crazies and all the panhandlers that would be begging for money while they're trying to get on this boat. You would see carloads of families driving to the BobLo dock--kids with their faces pressed up against the glass, looking at you like you're a freak show, and I'm sure what their parents were saying wasn't helping."

Ironically, those kids have turned out to be ICP's main audience. "Those are the people that need to hear it," J points out. "People always say, 'You guys don't sell a lot of records in your own neighborhood.' And we don't, really, 'cause it's about the people in our neighborhood and them buying it doesn't really make sense! We make fun of people from the South because a lot of them are racist, and when we go down South we pack a concert venue. That's good! Those are the places we need to sell the records. We sell records in rich neighborhoods. People are like, 'I'm not gonna be nothing like this person, I'm not gonna be like my parents were.'"

"Great Milenko"
"Hokus Pokus"
"Piggy Pie"
The Dark Carnival is a funhouse nightmare in which wife-beaters, greedy rich people, racists, drug addicts and child abusers get their due--generally in some frighteningly violent manner. The group planned for six records--"Joker's Cards," they call them--each with a different carnivalesque atmosphere. "Every album is another reflection of yourself," says J. "They're all saying, 'Yo, what are you like?' They say you have six warnings to get your shit straight--they're showing you in six different lights how many sins you have committed."

The Clowns barrel through this extremely heavy terrain with a maniacally profane irreverence. "If we came out with our message in plain English, nobody'd buy the record 'cause you don't want to be lectured and schooled," J reasons. "So I don't say, 'Don't be racist. Racism is not good.' I say it on a level that kids will understand, like, 'Kill the racists!' We do it through entertainment."

It's not surprising that Disney found ICP's blend of gritty scenarios and dark pseudo-mysticism distasteful. But as J sees it, those responsible for "the happiest place on earth"--Disneyland--are like any other corporate entities. "They're not happy with billions, they want trillions," he asserts. "They want the wicked shit, they want the friendly shit, they want the serial killer clown shit. They want anything that makes a buck, and they got caught with their hand in our cookie jar." Disney claimed to be ignorant of the content of the band's material. "What's funny," scoffs J, "is that this giant, mega-huge corporation lies like schoolyard punks!" Months before Disney pulled The Great Milenko from stores, it had been scrutinizing ICP's songs. "We had a lot of things Disney came in and said no to," J said just days before the company released the album last June. "They're like Big Brother. Any time you try to make some reality, they cry about it." There are three songs on the Island version of The Great Milenko that Disney wouldn't allow ICP to release. "We had been dealing directly with Disney lawyers about our lyrics for five months!" J now emphasizes. "It's a pretty scary thing--somebody like Disney just lies to the whole world."

With Disney out of the way, ICP is finally free to be as bad as they want. "We're going after Marilyn Manson," chuckles J. "I guarantee you, mark my words, within one year, Insane Clown Posse will be three times bigger than anybody ever imagined, 'cause you've got to have that kind of karma. We'll make Marilyn Manson look like Hanson!"

Janiss_Garza

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