Insane Clown Posse is not famous in the rap metal genre for its amazing music or flat lyrics. No, they were loved by fans for the fact that fire and tons of soda were flying towards the audience on their show. As it turned out, for the 90s this was quite enough to work with popular labels.
Childhood of Joe Bruce
Michigan is one of the poorest states in the US. Naturally, when such guys grow up and create a cell of society, the family lives "friendly and happy" for a maximum of a year. First of all, children suffer from such a life. It was in such a dysfunctional family that Joe Bruce was “lucky” to be born.
He was born in the godforsaken town of Berkeley. The stepfathers changed every two years. They seemed to compete - who will be the greater bastard in relation to their mother. Joe, and his brother Rob, were infuriated. They would gladly shoot each of these scoundrels.
As Joe later tells, a ghost lived in their house. Even at a young age, he had to face this white-foggy silhouette at the door to the bedroom. Naturally, the young guy was frightened by what he saw. Soon, everyone in the household began to notice a translucent figure.
Rob and Joe, left alone, decided to pray to this ghost and asked him to stop scaring their family. Oddly enough, the prayers worked, the ghost switched to the guests, but the brothers and mother were not touched.
Classmates did not like Joe. Despite the fact that their mother worked in a church and received only food stamps, she still had a car. When Bruce's mother drove the neighbors' children to school, they asked to be dropped off a few kilometers away so that no one could see who was giving them a lift.
With the girls, the brothers also did not work out from childhood. When schoolgirls invented another game of desire, the most terrible punishment for them was considered to be kissing one and the Bruce brothers.
Gradual immersion in musical culture
At the age of 12, Joey and his mother moved to Oak Park, where his mother found herself a new boyfriend. Life became a little more fun, because the city in those years was a sewer for all kinds of races and nationalities. At the new school, Joe met Joey Atsler, better known to the general public under the pseudonym Shaggy 2 Dope. They quickly bonded and became bosom bros despite Joey being over 2 years younger.
At school age, they create their first rap group called JJ Boys. The guys took part in freestyle competitions. Their principal rivals were the Wrecking Crew, who had a more professional sound, but no plans for future development.
But the JJ Boys quickly figured out that they needed to record the first cassette. In fact, the final recording contained only one track, "The Party At The Top Of The Hill". It is in this track that the first mention of soda "Faygo" will be made, which in the future will become an indispensable attribute for performers on stage.
Insane Clown Posse: Rebellious Beginnings and Interests
In those years, when brother Joe Rob was taken into the army, the situation on the streets deteriorated significantly. The districts were divided between warring gangs. Joe and Joey started out stealing, screwing labels on cars and then selling them in the back alleys. Despite the fact that they were still children, they wanted to play gangsters. They tried to be like RUN-DMC.
At 14, Joe is kicked out of school. Joey is also excluded, after which the guys have to go through a school of not the most prestigious part-time jobs. They had to be dishes in restaurants, work as "fools" in promotional costumes and invite passers-by to a pizzeria. They were fired, they looked for another low-paying job, they fired again, and the whole procedure went in circles.
On their free days, the boys liked to go to WWF fights. As ardent fans, they collected autographs of the fighters. We found like-minded people, one of whom will be a good friend Rudy. Plunging into all this fighting extravaganza, the guys decided to become professional wrestlers.
However, life turned out so that they continued to hang around the streets of the area, rapping and playing gangsters. It was these directions that most excited the minds of young guys, which later led to the creation of the Inner City Posse group in 1989.
Creativity Insane clown posse
A few years after the creation of Inner City Posse, the members of the gang quickly scattered. As a result, only 2 participants Joseph Bruce (Violent J) and Joseph Atsler (Shaggy 2 Dope) decided to continue the path to glory. They decide to rename their gang to Insane clown posse and start capturing a wide audience.
The beginning of the Dark Carnival saga came in 1992, when they released their first album, Carnival of Carnage, on their own label, Psychopathic Records. An interesting fact is that they called their album "Joker". On the first day, the record sold 17 copies. This creation helped ICP get its first exposure in the Detroit underground. Only when the guys decided to go on tour to other states, it turned out that no one knows them.
After the release of the 2nd album "The Ringmaster", the group managed to build up a fan base a little. In 1995, ICP began to cooperate with the Jive Records label and signed their first contract with them. It is this studio that will give the world the third "joker" "The Riddlebox". However, the record failed and the label had to terminate the contract with the "clowns".
Own promotion and label wandering
But the group did not despair and decided to take control of the promotion company. They paid special people who traveled to different cities and told people that there was such a "super" group Insane clown posse. At the same time, the guys were preparing concert shows using monsters and fire. Naturally, at the same moment, the "chip" with soda was invented.
Their efforts have not gone unnoticed. The Hollywood records studio takes the group under its wing, on which the disc “The Great Milenko” is recorded. However, the release day for the label turned out to be a real nightmare.
Because of the offensive texts of ICP, tons of complaints and criticism rained down on the studio. The Baptists attacked the label, demanding that the album be taken off the market. The protesters were intimidated by the fact that they were ready to set fire to Disneyland if the record remained on store shelves.
Naturally, Hollywood records decided not to nightmare the crowd of angry Baptists and terminated the contract with the cleavers. It is also worth noting that this was not the first public scandal for Joe and Joey, since both performers were frequent guests at the police stations.
Fortunately, ICP quickly picks up another label, Island records. Together with them, The Great Milenko was re-released, which later became a platinum work.
ICP started publishing comics about themselves. They also became participants in wrestling matches, as they dreamed of in childhood.
The video "Big Money Hustlas" was released in 2000, after which the guys released another album, which received two versions at once. It was called "Bizzar" and "Bizaar". It is also worth noting that this was the first record that the band did not consider a "joker". The last card for the group was the album "The Wraith: Shangri-La" released in 2002.
