Dave Itzkoff from NYtimes.com recently published an in-depth article about the Insane Clown Posse. In this article Dave talks to Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope about a plethora of topics.

Some of the topics discussed in this article are Fuse’s Most Shocking special, the case against the FBI, the lawsuit that Andrea Pellegrini filed against them and more. You can read the full article below.

From NYtimes.com

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. — For more than 20 years, the rap duo Insane Clown Posse has courted controversy by rhyming about depravity, brutality and insanity. Now it causes trouble by making fun of Miley Cyrus.

A few days ago, Insane Clown Posse, a pioneering act in a rap genre called horrorcore, was approached by Fuse, the music-oriented cable channel, to record its commentary for a roundup of supposedly shocking music videos. Though the rappers have enjoyed their increasing visibility on Fuse (where a second season of their television series “Insane Clown Posse Theater,” will debut on Wednesday), they were dismayed to find that those videos included nonthreatening artists like Robin Thicke and Adam Levine.

“How are we going to sit there and talk about how shocking Maroon 5 is?” asked Joseph Utsler, an Insane Clown Posse co-founder who goes by the stage name Shaggy 2 Dope.

His musical partner, Joseph Bruce, known as Violent J, added: “We had to do it I.C.P.-style or it would have looked bad for us.”

The band’s solution was to mock the performers that Fuse had asked them to discuss. (“Justin Bieber started off as a teeny-bop child artist,” explained Violent J. “Now he’s a teeny-bop child artist with tattoos. Shocking!”) But even as performers who wear the face paint of grinning harlequins and burnish their outsider status, the duo understand that something looks very strange about this arrangement.

The past year has been particularly trying for Insane Clown Posse, which, with an attitude that mixes silliness and over-the-top aggression, has built a worshipful cadre of fans, known as Juggalos.

On one front, the band is waging a legal battle against the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose National Gang Intelligence Center listed Juggalos as “a loosely organized hybrid gang” in a 2011 report. On another, the band is pushing back against a former publicist who is suing Insane Clown Posse for sexual harassment. Add these challenges to the group’s continuing struggle to preserve its underground reputation while pursuing mainstream acceptance, and you have the makings of a full-blown existential crisis.

Lately, Violent J said, he has been seeing a psychiatrist and taking medication to help him cope with the persistent feeling that he can never turn off the pressures of work.

“I want to come home, be with my kids, just kick back and watch TV,” he said. “And I can’t do it unless I take some sort of sedative to slow me down.”

“If you’re not banging the drums, making noise in this industry, nobody’s looking at you,” he added. “Nobody’s listening.”

On a chilly autumn morning, Violent J, 41, and Shaggy 2 Dope, 39, were holding court at the offices of their label, Psychopathic Records, in a modest building here, about 20 miles northwest of Detroit, that is part warehouse, part frat house. They are plain-spoken but always conscious of how their choices will affect perceptions; they seek opportunities that will portray them in the right light, but understand that, in a social-media era, they cannot afford to pass up any exposure.

Indeed, 1990s-era Insane Clown Posse albums like “The Great Milenko” and “The Amazing Jeckel Brothers” both went platinum. By comparison, “The Mighty Death Pop!,” a 2012 release that included songs like “Night of the Chainsaw” and “Hate Her to Death,” has sold just 94,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

And though Insane Clown Posse has been satirized on “Saturday Night Live” and throughout popular culture, it knows that this recognition does not translate into artistic credibility or record sales. “None of that registered,” Violent J said, when “The Mighty Death Pop!” came out.

Still, other independent musicians and labels want to see Insane Clown Posse succeed, because the group represents an important bellwether of their industry.

What the band faces now is “a hell of a challenge,” said Travis O’Guin, the president and chief executive of Strange Music, a hip-hop label in Missouri.

“I hope that there’s an opportunity for them to continue doing what they’re doing,” Mr. O’Guin said. “Their business, their merchandising, their touring — all of that stuff is very impressive. Those are things that I don’t want to see go away.”

Nathan Rabin, a journalist who wrote about Juggalo culture in his book “You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me,” said in a telephone interview that there was “something incredibly defanged” about the band’s Fuse appearances and television series.

The “outlaw element” of Insane Clown Posse was “a big part of their appeal, even now,” Mr. Rabin said, “and it’s hard to reconcile that with two affable, middle-aged men in clown makeup, making goofy comments about Britney Spears videos.”

What matters most, the band says, are the Juggalos, who paint their faces like Insane Clown Posse, consistently buy the records, merchandise and concert tickets, and probably number in the tens of thousands. (“They’re not millions,” Violent J said.)

This loyalty has been threatened by the F.B.I.’s National Gang Threat Assessment report, which said that Juggalos were “rapidly expanding into many U.S. communities” and were likely to “exhibit ganglike behavior and engage in criminal activity and violence.” The report cited two crimes — the shooting and wounding of a couple in Washington State, and the beating and robbing of a homeless man in Oregon — said to have been committed by “suspected Juggalo associates.”

Last year Insane Clown Posse sued the F.B.I., seeking the documents that the bureau used to reach this assessment. In August, federal authorities filed a motion to dismiss the case, saying they had already released several news media reports about Juggalos involved in criminal activity.

Kary Moss, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan who is working with the group’s lawyers, said in a statement that she expected an announcement shortly “regarding the next steps that will be taken to ensure the right of Juggalos everywhere to gather together and express their support of the I.C.P. without having to worry about being unfairly targeted and harassed by law enforcement.”

Violent J said that the band felt obligated to pursue the case. “It’s time-consuming, it’s money-consuming, it’s killing us financially,” he said. “But it’s letting everybody know we’re fighting it. If we don’t, eventually everybody will accept it, that they are a gang.”

In September, Insane Clown Posse and Psychopathic Records were sued by a former publicist, Andrea Pellegrini, who said in her complaint that she was “subjected to constant and pervasive harassment during her tenure” and “was mocked, belittled and the subject of sexual advances” from label personnel.

Violent J said that he and Shaggy 2 Dope were “married men” and that there was “no sexual harassment going on” at the label.

“We were proud to have her,” he said of Ms. Pellegrini, “but she was never one of us.”

Jonathan R. Marko, a lawyer for Ms. Pellegrini, said in an email that the “legal question” of his client’s case “is whether or not any woman should have to fit in with an employer who is degrading, abusive, discriminatory and misogynistic.”

Mr. Marko added: “The moral question is how any segment of our culture could tolerate an industry that considers such subcortical, if not primal, antics as entertaining.”

After a tour of Australia and Christmas holidays with family, Insane Clown Posse is approaching 2014 as a rebuilding year. The band’s touring in 2013 was curtailed — Violent J was recovering from knee surgeries and Shaggy 2 Dope had neck surgery — but it hopes to release an album next year and to unveil a new location for its annual summer festival, the Gathering of the Juggalos.

Beneath their greasepaint, the rappers did not appear to blanch at a question about whether, after all these years, they were no longer vital.

“You mean young?” Violent J answered with a laugh. “Absolutely, man, everything’s harder. We’re old school now. You can’t deny it.”

Websites:

• nytimes.com
• insaneclownposse.com