For Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope of Insane Clown Posse, the hustle never ceases. While the horror-rappers are gearing up for the upcoming Gathering and hopping on acclaimed podcasts, they’re actively touring and promoting their most recent album, Woh the Weeping Weirdo. All this, and continuing to uphold the intricate, and Juggalo-inhabited, eclectic ecosystem they’ve built over 33-plus years. Their world is one that, while favoring tongue-in-cheek references to murder and knives, also identifies as a true family held together by a unique dialect made of idioms and slang, a clowncore nü-metal aesthetic, and a cherished code of values — built on upholding community and subverting class hierarchy. But however perennial as their fanbase and presence has been over the years, Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope have never escaped controversy.
Earlier this summer, while touring and the lot, they added a new format to their grind — by releasing When Deadbug Met the Duke, a documentary that pulls back the curtain on their 33-year creative journey — not withholding the good, the bad, or the ugly. It all began when Violet J, “The Duke,” stumbled upon the director Deadbug’s (ironically) true crime-themed videos online, inspiring the rapper to connect with, and invite, the intrigued videographer to cover an ICP show during “Juggalo Weekend.”
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The result of said weekend is far beyond a show recap — apparently in real time, the hour-long film unravels the real story of the Juggalos, a group crowned “most hated band in the world” for three decades, who’ve had to acclimatize to unending hostility and judgment from those on the outside. Beautifully, Deadbug’s project avoids any blanket statement. It leans away from upfront demonization of ICP as a crew of clowns making music that’s easy to look past, yet avoids swinging in the other direction and painting a syrupy story that attempts to convince us to join the gang. The film finds the middle, trailing alongside Deadbug as he authentically lives through the experience himself — entering the miraculous ecosystem with transparency, full of his own doubts about ICP’s meaning or caliber — and simply lets the answers unfold.
With the Gathering ahead, and a final tour in talks, we encourage you to investigate the duo, consume some content, and peek behind the ICP curtain. We can’t promise you’ll like it, but we can promise there’s plenty to see, hear, learn, and be sprayed with that you certainly won’t find anywhere else.
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How did the documentary come to be?
I really like [Deadbug’s] stuff on YouTube. Some of it really pushes the limits, but man the guy’s voice and his editing totally blew me away. For years, he was a mystery to me. I didn’t know if he was really like the character. He is or not. Finally, I reached out and contacted him to invite him to one of our shows we had coming up in Texas. Then I had the idea of asking him to bring a camera and do a 15-min doc about his trip, because all I’d ever seen from him was his true crime stuff. I always wanted to see what something, anything else from him would be like, especially something about ICP! Well, I finally got to see something else from him, and honestly, it was better than anything I could have imagined. He brought his damn camera on his trip all right, and he fuckin’ killed it. Honestly, he painted such an amazingly beautiful picture of me, man, that I just wish my mom could have seen it before she passed. She died pretty much the week before it came out, but it don’t matter, though, because I know she’s waiting up at the gates for me right now, probably watching that bad boy and other fresh stuff Deadbug ain’t even thought about working on yet. I’d imagine that’s how Shangri-La works!
When did you first see Deadbug’s work?
I first discovered Deadbug’s channel l’d say maybe three years ago? His channel is like a true crime thing, but it’s nothing at all like I’ve ever seen before. Very brutal stuff. I mean, so brutal that I gotta be in the right frame of mind to even watch his stuff or it’ll put me in a funk. It’s very brutal and so descriptive yet fascinating at the same time if you got the stomach for it. I know he must be in a constant war with YouTube over censoring. There’s always stuff in his videos that you have no idea how it didn’t get flagged.
What do you think this film says or shows about Juggalos and ICP that hasn’t been shown before?
For me, I think it shows what it’s like not to be a Juggalo at all — just a regular ninja just chillin’ in London, living his life. Suddenly he’s invited to an ICP show in the U.S., and from there he’s thrust into an all-access deep dive into the Juggalo world. In only 45 minutes, the way he describes his adventure in this DOC, I think everyone in the world could probably relate to. He discovers firsthand that the magic — that feeling of family among us — is absolutely real. We’ve known this all along. He discovers that we’re the most hated band in the world, but the colder it is on the outside, the warmer it is on the inside.
If you had to sum up the message behind this doc, what would it be?
That it makes no sense to diss, hate, or make fun of people who are having fun doing something unique just because you don’t understand it. People see other people having fun, doing whatever — just because you don’t like what they’re doing and it’s not your thing don’t mean those people suck and they’re dumb. Just look at furries, for example. People shit on furries, but I been to their world, and they’re fuckin’ amazing, sweet, creative people. I think we as people often fear what we don’t understand, and that’s wrong. I think the message of this doc in a nutshell might be “don’t judge a book by its cover.”
What was it like working with Deadbug, and how would you describe the process of making the documentary?
All I did was an hour-long interview. He was in the shadows just filming basically. This thing is his creation. It was such a busy weekend — Juggalo Weekend always is. We got two wrestling shows that I produce, two concerts we do, two meet and greets and pretty much everyone I know is there wanting to say hi. My Juggalo Weekend was like it always is — he was just hiding out getting shots. I looked up at one point, and he was clinging to the roof like a ninja.
With the tour, the Gathering in August, and the documentary, there’s a lot going on. If you had to give a title to the “era” ICP is in right now, what would you say?
Man, I’d call this “the legendary era” ’cause everyone calls us that these days. It’s probably just a nice-ass way of saying two things: No. 1 we’re still here, and No. 2 we’re old as fuck. Man, honestly I’d say this is almost the best era. This is the era of our arrival. There’s just so many examples of this, too. I could name a thousand. We did Drink Champs, which is one of, if not the biggest, hip-hop podcast today. What the hell was ICP doing on Drink Champs? Who’d of thunk it right? We’re also going to the MTV Music Awards and walking the red carpet for our very first time ever. We been getting our flowers everywhere lately it seems, and we did it all on our own terms. We didn’t have to change a thing about ourselves to get here. We never had to sell out, and we still made it here! And we come from the era when there was such a thing as selling out and changing your music or videos. We’ve never done that. It was a long-ass walk, but we finally arrived. We stayed the same, but it feels like the world caught up or changed in a way where people and hip-hop in general are way more open-minded. I just know we both enjoy this part of our career more than any other. Besides the Shangri-La era, which will always be our No. 1 fav.
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What’s a day in the life of The Duke?
Let’s just say that I can’t even itch my face without thinking about it and double-checking to see if I’m wearing the face paint or not. Even when I’m lying on the couch in the middle of the night, I still have to think about it before I touch my face every time. A day in the life of the Duke don’t end when night falls. Nope. Because when I sleep, I actually dream in the paint, too. Giving hugs can suck also. One time I went to hug Ice-T’s wife, Coco, and I fuckin’ got clown paint all over the shoulder of her black fur coat. That right there is the life of The Duke. Wishing I could lift my head outta bed in the morning and boom! Be ready for a photo session like Tommy Lee.
The last thing ICP released was last year. Have you gotten to see a response to the new music in person yet?
Shaggy and myself have been touring our solo music for the last six or seven months. We like to switch things up with a solo album and tour every three or four years. So, we been doing that before we actually begin our final, worldwide farewell tour. We call it a “Farewell Tour” because this will definitely be the last time we crawl back into a damn tour bus and do 25 shows a month. We’ll always play six or seven events a year, but we don’t wanna pound the pavement no more. We did that shit for 30 years. That’s for these nerds tryna catch up to us. We don’t have to tour like that anymore because we’re already 8,000 tours ahead of whoever’s No. 2 in the world. It’s kind of like when we was kids playing quarter video games at the arcade. There was always that one guy who was so good, so far ahead of everyone else, who had so many extra free guys that he could just stop playing and eat lunch while his extra men died off. That’s us… We got 60,000 free guys, and we could never touch the joystick again and still have enough free guys to last forever.
How do you think your last ICP album, Woh The Weeping Weirdo, differs from what you’d put out before?
It’s better. Everything we drop is always better than the last. I’m just kidding — it’s probably no different. If you didn’t like ICP before, you probably still won’t. But our new shit definitely adds to our legacy, though. Every piece of music we drop is probably somebody’s favorite somewhere in the world, right? If you have as many fans as we do in the world, and you drop some new shit and it’s not anybody’s favorite? Like out of your entire fanbase your new shit ain’t anyone’s favorite? Not even one person? Then yeah, face it, it’s probably time to quit rapping. You suck. If your new shit is costing you fans instead of making ’em? Then yeah you suck ass now. Just stop.
As someone who wants to attend the Gathering for the first time, what is your advice?
My advice is to just fuckin’ go. Life is all about making memories. If you go to the Gathering of the Juggalos, you will absolutely never ever forget that experience. That makes it priceless. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You could put your change from your pocket in a jar every day for a year, and you’d have enough money to not only get in, but you could probably take a Space X rocket there and everything. Material items come and go in life, but memories and experiences last forever — unless you smoke your memories away. My advice is to go to the Gathering because I’m telling you right now, I’ve never heard of anybody going to the Gathering and having an awful time. I hear people say, “Oh man, I’ve always wanted to go my whole life.” My response to that is, “What the fuck you waiting for then?” It’s not held on Pluto. It’s in fuckin’ Ohio. The four-day pass cost as much as a one-day pass at any other big festival. Everyone who goes totally falls in love with it. Man, if you been wanting to go your whole life, then what the hell are you waiting for? Nothing to it but to do it brah!
