Most people view The Insane Clown Posse as a gimmick group lacking substance, but the group has kept a loyal fan base and achieved a long and successful music career. This career is often dismissed and disrespected due to their “insane” personas and image. I should know, I’ve been defending them and this genre of music for well over a decade. Not one verse was lost on me over that period of time, and I’ve seen both sides of the coin, while others don’t look past their image before passing judgment. The Insane Clown Posse are characters that have created these personas to mock, as they indeed have never been afraid to mock themselves. As highly entertaining as that has been from a fans perspective it has also created a backlash and brought an incomparable and unfair amount of disrespect to the men and their art.
Beneath the entertainment it’s easy to see, the birth of the clown characters came from their own morals, torments, and nightmares. The original incarnation of the famed “Dark Carnival” was an idea of an over the top personification of how the more successful communities viewed the lower income communities. Feeling they were looked at as a Freak Show to gawk at, Joe Bruce and Joseph Utsler decided to display their anger and ideas with literal visuals to accompany their music, and in this instance the Inner City Posse made the permanent transformation to The Insane Clown Posse. The group was quickly targeted by anyone who felt challenged by the views and labelled talentless wastes who couldn’t put anything intelligent to tape if they tried. They were deemed as insane as their name states without the courtesy of an understanding of the lyrics and ideas. The mainstream immediately scrapped the duo. Little did they know these weren’t clowns, they were men bringing sanity to an insane world through hip hop much like the tradition of the genre. This list dictates these points so at last I give to you dear reader The Top Ten Displays of Sanity from The Insane Clown Posse.
10) Album: Carnival of Carnage (1992)
10) Album: Carnival of Carnage (1992)Track: Taste
Taste, the closing track of Carnival of Carnage is possibly the most important to make the list. It signifies the reason for the group’s persona. The intro is a frustrating verbal visualization of the conditions that planted the anger in the men. In this track the group vents it’s frustration while using the over the top horror movie ideals to keep it as entertaining and fun as it is tragic.
Notable Lyrics:
” …and when we kill the governments children and the streets smell of death maybe then they will see our situation in a new light and put an end to the chaos in the ghetto and put an end to the killing.”
“…ritch bitch fucka took me for a sucka now we killing you instead of killing each other, walked in ya house shot him in the mouth leaned back the head and poured the brains out, my lips are strong, it’s only a song, the government fronts like they don’t know whats goin on…”
“…seems like they don’t even know about the inner city crime war, money on the troops in the desert but what the fuck for? Damn that’s stupid their minds must be failin, think I’d rather pay a little extra for a gallon and save a human life or two…”
9) Album: The Ringmaster (1994)
9) Album: The Ringmaster (1994)Track: Southwest Song
With similar ideas revolving around conditions of living in low income communities Southwest Song also focuses on environmental break down of health in large industrial cities.
Notable Lyrics:
“…Factory smoke and choke in pain cuz Del Ray funk is in my brain so I break the law, but I’m not to blame, you only know my place, you don’t know my name..”
“I wait for night to fall and then I walk outside and then I run back in cuz I don’t want to die, you see the air alone it can corrupt your brain as smoke fills the sky enough to block the rain…”
“Everywhere I go I bring with me pride and then I pay a carney and I take a ride, but you see the wheel is wicked and it spins my death, so I try it again with what pride is left…”
8. Album: The Terror Wheel (1994)
Track: The Smog
The environmental concern of pollution over the city is further elaborated in The Smog, as they treat the toxic clouds over the city as a life sucking monstrosity.
Notable Lyrics:
“Lord oh please what’s happening to me? It’s the poisonous air from the smoke stacks G, seeping in my head, fucking up my brain, driving me crazy, nuts, insane..sewer, sludgy, greasy slime, I’m always bucking with all the time. Cuz he’s my motherfucking enemy number one, trying to puncture up my life by filling up my lungs…”
“It’s no surprise I’m laying there paralyzed, looking up into the sky helped me realize, the clouds form a devil’s face, it must just be a mirror image of the human race…”
7) Album: The Riddle Box (1995)
7) Album: The Riddle Box (1995)Track: 12
This track plays on social commentary of human rights concerning the death penalty. The story follows a resurrected inmate who got sentenced to the electric chair by what seems to be a corrupt jury.
Notable Lyrics:
“Awake……Revenge is mine, 12 people will die tonight”
“I must quickly use my gift, next two work the midnight shift, drinking coffee in the back, I will listen to them chat, hear them speaking of my death, hear the laughter in their breath, but the laughter quickly dies when their heads collide…”
“Now my angers growing worse, next one working as a nurse, have to make a doctor’s call, drag my body down the hall, grab a scalpel and a blade, time to play the nurse’s aid, operate and strap her down, carve her face into a clown…”
“Listen to my Riddle song, even though my crime was wrong, murder me just for your law and I’ll be back for all a ya’ll, Killers Die, Your Gonna Die…”
6) Album: The Great Milenko (1997)
6) Album: The Great Milenko (1997)Track: Hellalujah
This is the first time religious corruption hits the list and before I go on I want to make clear this was never a stab at religion, but commentary on corruption that surfaced in religion. We will take no stance regarding religion on this site.
Notable Lyrics:
“Tell me what your soul is worth, how much money do you make, how much will you let me take, I will give you tranquility just send your welfare cheque to me..”
“God had called me and then stopped by, and he told me your going to die, unless you buy my holy water cheque cash or a money order, this is true don’t question me, I’ll even send you shit for free, it’s only ten bucks for the call and I’ll send a prayer no charge at all…”
“Your totals $22.11 for your set of keys to heaven, make the cheques out in my name, me or God it’s all the same…”
5) Album: The Great Milenko (1997)
Track: Halls of Illusions
Halls of Illusions jumps between two realities of an abusive husband and father. The ideal reality and then the actual reality his abusive nature has created.
Notable Lyrics:
“Back to reality and what your about your wife can’t smile because you knocked her teeth out, and she can’t see straight from getting hit because your a fat fuckin drunk piece of shit, but it’s all good here come have a beer, I’ll break the top off it and shove it in your ear, and your death comes wicked painful and slow, at the hands of Milenko…”
“…when they were kids you beat em and leave em home and even whip em with the cord on the telephone and that reminds me man hey you got a call, watch your step to Hell it’s a long fall…”
4) Album: The Amazing Jeckel Bros. (1999)
4) Album: The Amazing Jeckel Bros. (1999)Track: Terrible
Terrible focuses on the priority’s or lack there from the over saturated media conglomerates and how society feeds the biased beast.
Notable Lyrics:
“..The whole world was crying when Kurt went KABANG, when easy E died though it wasn’t no thang, rapper dies of aids but you hardly mention, rocker blows his face off and becomes a legend, heroine and a shotgun a hero was made, maybe I should do that shit so J can get paid…”
“The country we live in was built by slaves, beaten and murdered and stuffed in they graves, you put a slave owner on the one dollar bill and you want to know why I kill people? Bombs are blowing up cops are corrupt and all you care about is who the president fucked…”
3) Album: Bizaar (2000)
3) Album: Bizaar (2000)Track: Pendulum’s Promise
Pendulum’s Promise is another track that switches the perspective of the character in question. The first story features what seems to be the thought of a successful wealthy individual, but in the end reveals a man who is a failure of his expectations and is drowning in self hatred. The second character featured blames his wife for where he has failed in life. More social commentary for common problems in society.
Notable Lyrics:
“…He ain’t good for shit but bringing our property down dragging his funky ass around, he’s starving sporting a troop of sweats, hands dried up and cracked like the Sahara, wanting everyone’s affection, wait a minute that’s me I’m looking at my own reflection…”
“…I’m the king, I make the money, I work at White Castle, I’m the one who failed in life, I’m the one who takes it out on my wife, she don’t cheat, who am I trying to fool…”
2) Album: The Wraith: Hell’s Pit (2004)
2) Album: The Wraith: Hell’s Pit (2004)Track: C.P.K.’s
The duo once again attack the evil’s that surfaced from religion. After the sex scandals of the Catholic Church came to light the Crooked Preacher Killer’s were born.
Notable Lyrics:
“…He put his hand on my shoulder felt the claw of the beast, I never thought it’d be so fuckin easy murdering a priest, we went into a confession booth, he took off his clothes and cut some yay right on his bible top and ooted his nose, I jammed a butcher knife 12 inches into his gut, he looked me right in my eyes while I was yankin it up”
“…We shootin for the Preacher, fuck! I missed and hit the reverend, but it doesn’t matter though they say he’s going to heaven…”
1) Album: Bang! Pow! Boom! (2009)
Track: To Catch a Predator
Using the popular T.V. show as a template to slaughter pedophiles. As a victim of child molestation Violent J heads the entire track taking out what he sees as one of the greatest evils in the world.
Notable Lyrics:
“…Buckets of throw up are next to my computer, hopin they’ll show up cause what I’m about to do to em would make the devil sick, I sharpin up my blade frontin to this perv like I’m only in the seventh grade…”
“..Come on in have a seat, and then I stroll in with the all purpose hunting blade straight up his colon, I cut his hands off he ain’t touchin nobody, chain him up by the foot in the basement, bloody…”
