Juggalo History Hour: A continuing series on life in the Juggalo Culture

 

Juggalo History Hour: A continuing series on life in the early years of the Culture

 

With each passing year, the Juggalo Nation continues to grow, evolve, and change whether we like it or not. This is the result of the longevity and success by the Insane Clown Posse. I know its hard to believe today that the globe trotting clowns came from humble beginnings, but it is true. There was a time when selling ten or twenty thousand albums was a big deal for the group and the fans. For the hard facts such as actual releases and shows, the stories are out there. I’m not exactly talking about the things that are heavily reported on.

I guess what I’m talking about when I say “Juggalo History Hour” is how life actually was in the nineties for fans in the movement, what it was like for the those first generation “Juggalos”, and what it’s been like to witness the transformation from in-store meet and greets at local records stores and small tribes, to the larger than life “pay per view” status of the Wicked Clownz own today.

In this article and continuing in the future, I want to get down in writing, things that people might not know, weren’t alive to see, or just different perspectives. For me, this is a dream come true, to write about ICP in 2021. I’ve been around for a very long time and where I was once a twelve year old “fan” (back then the term Juggalo wasn’t widely used if at all, at least in the part of the world that I found myself) living life in Genesee County, Michigan 810, the home of Wyatt Earp Records (RIP), Halo Burger, Angelo’s Coney Island, Flint Town, and much more. I am now forty years old, a father of two, and my views on life have changed in some aspects considerably, while in other ways not so much.

The thing about any movement or culture is that if the history is not celebrated and protected, it eventually dies. This is a fact and history bares this out, over and over through time. The minute people stop caring, the rust starts to set in, and the wheels start losing air. If no one fosters the “scene” with protective hands, forever keeping the future in view with a memory of the past close by, then it will all have been for nothing.

I wouldn’t declare I’m a super expert or even a know it all on the subject. I can only attest to what I participated in and witnessed with my own eyes over the last three decades. Will the things I talk about capture everyone’s feelings or points of view? I doubt it. Life in America can be different for everyone and there are many reasons for that: how old a person is, where they were born, and the access for that given area.

My aim is simply to educate people where I can, entertain the younger Juggalos with images and recollections from the past, and celebrate a group that gave kids all over the country something to belong to. Due to the enormous volume of information to work with on the subject, I will just start somewhere and run with it. If I choose to jump around a bit or focus on something particular, as the saying goes “it is what it is”. So for the flagship series opener, lets get to it……

 

Special Note from the Author:

Like any story there has to be a starting point and today’s lesson is going to take you, the reader, back to the early 1990’s. Looking back at how things were from today’s point of view makes me extremely proud that I was “out there”. Can there ever be a more important time than the birth of a movement? I suppose. It took dedication and commitment by those early fans of Insane Clown Posse (Inner City Posse) to help lay the foundation and make the vision that Violent J and 2 Dope had a reality. Does this participation have more value than the current state of things? I don’t know if it is more valuable, but the early fans played a specific role that was absolutely necessary for things to exist in the present day.

 

With that being said, without the fans of today, the whole circus could easily be forgotten in a few years, which makes them just as important in their unique way. It’s like a two-part system that needs to function for everything to work. I’m not here to de-value anyone’s contributions to the Juggalo Universe, we rise together, which means we also fall together. Now that I’ve got that shit out of the way, we can move on. So fire up the dope, crack that forty, and let’s go back in time….(feel free to make up your own bizarre sounds and grotesque body movements as you slip through the fabric of space time)

1994

I guess this is a good enough place to start as any. Judging from the date on the flyer, I’ve been transformed back into my former 14 year old self and Halloween is fast approaching. Unable to vote, buy smokes, or purchase booze, life had it’s challenges.

 

Among the other bullshit of coming of age, is the fact that the early to mid teen years can be a bitch. At the time I was a freshman at Swartz Creek High School in Genesee County, just a stone’s throw away from Murder City aka Flint Town. Flint needs no introduction unless a person is from an Amish community in rural Ohio, but then again, those bearded buggy driving party boys probably have at least heard of the city.

 

As freshmen, life in high school can be rather difficult to navigate. Back then, freshmen were fair game and often targeted for violence and humiliations by upper classmen (guys and girls, the ladies could be just as vicious) which most teachers seemed to ignore or condone on some level. I went to a class A school, which meant that there was more people than you could probably meet and keep track of. A person had a crew or group of friends, maybe some association with other students from school activities, but beyond that, a lot of people could be a mystery for the entire four years.

Back then, there was a mad dash to link up with a particular group, for social survival, and also just to avoid being alone. There was no internet to fall back on or social media to help connect satellite people with others. You were where you stood. If there wasn’t anyone else into the same shit as you in your town, a person had two options. Fucking move or go it alone.

Like most other places, the school only offered so many “positions” within the student body hierarchy. If anyone has seen the movie “Breakfast Club” then this will make perfect sense. If not, go watch the damn movie because it is dope and captures the spirit of the times, even if it was from a few years earlier compared to 1994.

Positions in high school mirrored the class type society we live in America today. At the top, at least in those days were the Jocks. This included the Varsity Football team at the top of the pecking order, with the basketball team coming in at a close second, followed by the soccer and wrestling teams. The marching band obviously was the lowest form of existence in this part of the world and suffered considerably at the hands of all previous mentioned groups.

For the ladies, there was the Varsity Cheerleaders rounding out first, with volleyball, softball, and soccer fighting to exist. Women’s sports were not as popular then as they are today, so participation varied.

The reality of the times were that not everyone could play sports because of various reasons. Mostly because they sucked, didn’t have the resources, or there simply wasn’t enough spots to go around. This meant that a lot of people were “locked out” of the student ruling class.

From there a person had a few choices. They could try to join a supporting class of people like the drama club, the debate team, the student newspaper, yearbook, or some academic type situation. It wasn’t the best, but still beat marching band. I know because I was a member of the drumline for two years and have earned a right to make fun of it. These types of scenes were mostly around to play a supporting role to the chosen few. This may have been ok for them, but I could never fully support anything that didn’t like me to begin with, who the fuck would?

I played basketball, soccer, and also drummed for the school, but no matter what I did, I just kind of landed somewhere out by the fringes. I was ok with this because I could relate to the outcasts and more radical elements of the student body, a lot better than most of my “teammates” at the time. I just didn’t fit in but there were reasons for this I suppose.

 

For one, I was a rap head. I had started listening to the genre sometime at the end of the eighties. I had always enjoyed music and it offered one of the few escapes from the reality all around me. In those early years, I settled for whatever I could get my hands on, which usually meant bargin-bin type compilations from the “west coast”. The more I listened to rap, the more I was intrigued and pulled in. Once I made up my mind that rap was it for me, I went all in.

 

One thing I will say about rap is that it was a polarizing force in the early 90’s depending on where you lived. There were a lot of people back then that hated rap and were openly hostile to it. If someone had on baggy or sagging pants, ADIDAS shoes, a skull cap, hoodie, or Kangol on….there was a good chance for confrontation or physical contact. I wore all those things and never heard the end of it, mostly from the “preppy fools” or the jock community. There was a real sense of us versus them, but there weren’t very many rap heads around, so it was more like you versus the world. That maybe a little dramatic, but for the most part, that was the reality of it.

 

When the world at large either rejected me outright or at least designated me as less than, I decided to strike out further to find like minded people. By that point ICP had become part of my daily life, after a chance encounter with Dog Beats a few years earlier at my cousin’s house in Mt. Morris. My people lived on Spruce Street in town and I spent considerable time over there spending the night, throwing rocks at the car wash, or whatever other shit we could get into. The oldest cousin had a crew of his own that they called “SD” (Scrump em and dump em). They were into rap and someone had a copy of Inner City Posse’s Dog Beats.

This was a pivotal turning point for me and that tape would play a big part on my musical tastes, expectations, and lifestyle from that moment on. From that previous introduction, fast forward about two years and I’m a freshmen in 1994. So anyway, in looking for my tribe, I eventually came across about six people that I could identify with and who all had a love for the Insane Clown Posse, which Inner City Posse had become shortly after Dog Beats was released.

 

In a Class A school, six people is not a large amount. I guess in mathematical terms, we wouldn’t have even registered on the map. We had about as many “members” as the skaters and the freaks. If you combined the outcasts from all three social circles, the alternative scene in 1994 might have had anywhere between twenty or thirty students total. To say that we didn’t have a lot of bodies was the understatement of the century. On most mornings I felt like the only fan of ICP on the planet, which was entirely true because there were at least six of us, maybe ten if you counted fair weather cats, but whatever.

 

I had at least found people who shared my love for the wicked clownz and that was not an easy thing to do. Like I said before people hated rap for the most part and people REALLY hated the ICP at that time. I’m sure it was a combination of reasons, including the fact that rap was mostly associated with the African American scene from the city and therefore hated on just because, then there was this group of white dudes that were totally into rap and trying to make it work, which confounded racist assholes at the time and drove them to real hate.

 

Society was a little tougher back then and it was not uncommon for people to chase others in my neighborhood, like some bizarre Outsider movie sequence, the rich dudes with cars trying to run down the baggy pants rap kids. It happened and sometimes people got their ass kicked. It wasn’t a warzone or nothing like that, but there were people that would take offense to things and want to let you know about it, and if the mood struck them, they were bailing out of the car to make you understand.

 

Being an ICP fan back then was an invitation for heckling, trouble, attack, and ridicule. Those early fans were die hards and tough. Mostly a person had to be if they were going to wear wicked clown gear to school, which by the way did not come from the mall. A person had to know where to find the merch to buy it and that wasn’t always easy to do. I didn’t have a car or a job, so my ICP stash was pretty fucking weak. Thankfully, back then the group had the ICP Fan Club, which gave me access to the group, free flyers which I treated like golden posters, and a sense of belonging.

Also for the current Juggalos out there, I want everyone to take a long hard look at the last sentence of the welcome notice. “YOU WILL RECIEVE A NEWSLETTER ON THE RECENT HAPPENINGS INVOLVING I.C.P. EVERY 90 DAYS!” Let that part sink in for awhile, hell let that part sink in for the rest of the fucking year. When I hear current “fans” bitching about a stalled out project, a delayed gift bag, or any of that type of weak ass shit, it really drives me crazy. We used to wait three months at a time for any word at all and if the letter came out a month late or whatever, that was just the way it was. NO ONE walked around crying about the delay, this was our thing, our little group against the world, who cared if shit was a month late? Shit sometimes we waited years (slight exaggeration) for the next concert, piece of news, release, or update on the group. No one was cooking up baby tears tea in the pot. We just waited for our heroes to update us. What more can anyone in the world expect, either back then or now?

To be perfectly honest if someone complained non-stop about the Clownz back then, we would have accused them of being undercover preppy jock spies and either stopped hanging with them all together or maybe even a little worse. The scene was so small, that we didn’t have room for bitch boys. None of the current types of complaining would have been tolerated and anyone who really loves the Juggalo Culture and the Insane Clown Posse, could never utter those type of things anyway. When I hear people trashing something, then it tells a few things about them.

One:

That their level of faith in the music or the universe or family or whatever isn’t really legit.

Two:

In a week or two the same person will be listening to some other “cool thing” and move on. Unhappy people/complainers are usually suffering from jealousy, envy, or a life of utter entitlement.

 

This is a news flash. No one owes anyone shit in this world. People can complain and be against things but that won’t get anyone anywhere. I’m not impressed with what people “are against”. You want to get somewhere with me, then tell me what the fuck you stand for and I will judge for myself. When I was a kid, other students were against me and homies for liking ESHAM, ICP, Project Born, Natas, Dayton Family, and rap locally/nationally. These people hated on me and my friends for years and guess what. All that hate turned out to be wasted, because they grew up, still without a home or thing to call their own. Myself on the other hand, I managed to keep the faith for my entire life and now I’m forty. I have something to still call my own although its on a different level than when I was fourteen in 1994.

 

I have a place to belong, people to identify with, a history that is thirty years in the making, and I’m proud to have been a part of it all. Complainers grow up and suddenly find out they have nothing to hold onto and no memories to reflect on, which I can imagine will make them even more sour down the road. This is why it is important to protect “our thing” for people to enjoy now, but also another thirty years down the road. Anyways back to the story….

 

Since the crew was small, I always tried to make people think that we had a bigger presence and reach, than we really did. I know a lot can be said about the FBI’s attempts to label ICP Fans a gang, but to be perfectly honest, back in 1994, we would have welcomed the moniker. We behaved like it anyway, at least where I lived. I tagged variations of ICP graffiti on every bathroom wall, locker, and building I could back then. Sometimes it was a simple “ICP” and other times I wrote out “Insane Clown Posse Bitch Boy” in full. If a person didn’t know better, they may have thought the school was busting open with ICP fans, but for the most part it was me and my trusted sharpie and maybe a can of Krylon? Who knows?

 

As fast as the janitor would get the shit removed, I would be putting the shit back up. Today it would be a lot harder and I don’t recommend vandalizing property that’s not yours. I was eventually arrested for spray painting the police station but that is another story for another time. Vandalism might seem tempting but it can lead to big time problems if one is not careful. At fourteen I didn’t care. Today I say, steer clear of it. I’m all in support of tagging a train or burned out building or an underpass…..but damaging property, especially School and Police property turns out to be a felony offense….just saying.

 

There were other considerations back then to or maybe different circumstances that lead me to avoid detection for a decent amount of time. There just wasn’t the level of surveillance in society that there is today. Today there are cameras everywhere, even in places you don’t think. Everyone has a camera on their phone and people are just one click away from getting evidence on trouble makers. Back in 1994, people didn’t have this type of technology, even if someone seen you do something, there weren’t cell phones to immediately call in the boys in blue. It was “simpler” but all that really means is a little more free.

 

We tagged shit, mobbed around trying to look tough, and did our best to let the world know we existed. If the FBI declared us a gang in 1994 we would have danced in the streets because it would have made us legit as the hardcore cats we wished we were. Hey, gangster rap was in full swing back then….so what could we do? This is interesting compared to the later attempted designation and the rejection of the label by most if not all of the Juggalos.

 

I understand why a “gang label” on the federal level is so dangerous and over reaching today. I get it, I’m just letting you know what the mind set was back then. It could be said that 1994 was a really great year to be a Juggalo, even if we didn’t use that reference to describe ourselves or each other at the time. A gang? Probably not in real terms. A cult? Possibly, we were all or nothing to the point of obsession, but so what? I was fourteen, what the fuck else did I have to do. Obviously I grew up and didn’t turn into a serial killer and I have a family, a house, and shit that doesn’t suck….so maybe all that hate, worry, and opposition was wasted energy on the behalf of those that opposed us. I’m just like anyone else, except for my fresh ass tattoo’s, love of good music, and my support of Psychopathic Records and the ICP.

That’s about it for this week’s edition of Juggalo History Hour, where we preserve the past, celebrate today, and look forward to the future. Keep coming back each week for a little more freshness from the 1990’s and learn about what it was like for the original Juggalo’s coming up. Until next time Juggalos and Juggalettes….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signing Off,

 

Mike Shepard

ROX-TV Head Writer

shepard2909@hotmail.com

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