Drew Ailes and Daniel Hill recently wrote a long and in–depth article about the Gathering of the Juggalos for Riverfronttimes.com. This a a very interesting article that i felt was a good read so i figured that i would share it. This article will be featured in the Print Edition of the River Front Times which comes out August 22nd.

You can read part of this article below and the link to read the full article can be found at the bottom of the page.

From RiverFrontTimes.com:

It is 2:45 on a Saturday afternoon in Cave-In-Rock, Illinois, a small town filled with beautiful parks and untouched wildlife, located about three and a half hours southeast of St. Louis. The sun has finally poked out from behind the clouds after days of overcast skies and intermittent rain, driving the temperatures into the mid-90s.

“Come on, when is this thing going to get started?” inquires a heavyset man standing amid a crowd that has assembled in and around a large tent, dabbing his forehead with the T-shirt from which he has divested himself. Staining the shirt along with his sweat are smears of black and white clown makeup that are melting off the man’s face in the heat.

This is the Gathering of the Juggalos, an annual music festival, now in its fourteenth year, produced by Insane Clown Posse, a Detroit-based rap group largely responsible for revitalizing the “horror-core” genre of hip-hop in the 1990s. (“Juggalos,” for the uninitiated, is a term that fans of the group and their related acts use to refer to themselves.) The affair, which transpires over a five-day summertime stretch on private land in middle-of-nowhere Cave-In-Rock, brings thousands of face-painted fans to the tiny Illinois town. The Seminar Tent, which occupies primo real estate at the center of the Gathering, serves as a platform for performers to address their fans at scheduled times. ICP’s seminar is the biggest draw, with hundreds jammed into a space designed to accommodate far fewer.

At about three o’clock, nearly an hour behind schedule, two men whose faces are obscured by clown paint take the tent’s miniscule stage. Immediately the beach balls that had been batted about overhead to pass the time are forgotten and left to fall.

Joseph Bruce, better known as to this group as Violent J, is first to speak. “We’d like to thank all of you for coming to the seminar,” he says. “We think about this — this exact moment — all year. Because we see you guys as the most elite juggalos on the planet. There are juggalos all over the world, but you guys are the ones that came here. It’s like you’ve come to Mecca, and we’re gonna tell you some shit, and that shit is going to be spread throughout the whole juggalo world.”

The crowd cheers in approval, yelling “woop woop!” as is the custom.

Bruce and his stagemate Joseph Utsler, better known to the crowd as Shaggy 2 Dope, comprise ICP. Despite a lack of mainstream assistance, the two have built an empire for themselves. Their Psychopathic Records label is said to bring in $10 million in gross annual revenue, according to the group in a 2010 interview with Nightline. In addition to music, the company has interests in merchandise, professional wrestling and video production.

“Nah, I can’t,” Bruce says to a fan in the front row who’s offering him a hit off of a blunt. “We perform tonight, and my voice is sounding good so I don’t want to fuck it up.” Even as he is declining, he is reaching his arm forward, seemingly subconsciously, toward the kid. “All right, fine,” he relents, grabbing the joint and taking a long drag. “You don’t have to ask me twice.”

The crowd screams its approval.

To continue reading this article in full click the link below.

Posse Galore: ICP fans celebrate the 14th GOTJ in Middle-of-Nowhere, Illinois

Websites:

• Riverfronttimes.com