Insane Clown Posse - The Ringmaster

The Ringmaster has gotta be a contender for one of my favorite ICP records. It marks the point where the group really start to find their feet. As much as I love Carnival of Carnage, it is a bit sketchy and the quality of tracks here far surpasses anything off that album, not to mention the Beverly Kills EP. I also think it's one of the more under-rated jokers cards, if not the most under-rated of the whole bunch. The Ringmaster is definitely the underdog of the original set of Dark Carnival troublemakers.

There is also a level of "silliness" that is missing from later albums, and the song production has a much more regular hip-hop feel than the unique direction that the band would quickly cement as their own. Don't get me wrong, there are carnival vibes aplenty, but the overall sound is much dryer and songs about Detroit still number strong. "Murder Go Round" is a classic opener, and shortly afterward is the hat-trick of "Mr. Johnson's Head", "Southwest Song" and "Get Off Me, Dog!"; three of ICP's best cuts back to back, again followed by another banger, "Who Asked You?".

It kinda falls off a bit after that but "House Of Mirrors" and "Bugz On My Nugz" are absolutely amazing songs, especially the latter, which always has me in peals of laughter. The closing track, "The Ringmaster's Word" is a twisted work of sampling. I sometimes wish ICP had continued with this earlier sound, I guess if nothing else they might have a bit more credibility (as much as you can give a group like ICP, at least).

I've lost the disc on my physical copy of this so I don't get to hear it that often anymore, but it's always nice to come back to for a trip through that old-school Detroit smog.

Esham - Closed Casket

Closed Casket is surely the definitive Esham record – I love absolutely everything about it; the sound, the lyrics, the samples, even the artwork (for some reason). Closed Casket captures a slice of Detroit “suicidalist” lifestyle in the smog of the early 90s, during that perfect period when Esham was still dank as fuck but not dropping references to the man down below every 20 seconds. 

I tend to categorise Esham into two categories – a.) when he goes hard, and b.) when he goes silly. Closed Casket falls entirely into the first camp, and is nowhere near as wet as records such as Mail Dominance or that Gothom City nonsense. All the beats are bangers, the bass is spot on, rumbling nicely along for a fat backbone. The production is lightyears ahead of the previous record, KKKill The Fetus, but still retains that grime and almost, how can I put it, copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copied-cassette sound. 

This kinda gets lumped in with the horrorcore thing as Esham is associated with ICP and all that lot, but any fan of old school hip hop would do themselves a service by checking this out. 

Stand-out tracks: “The Wicketshit Will Never Die”, “My Homie Got Shot”, “Can’t Take It Wit Cha”, “Chatty Ass Nigga”, “Flatline”, “2 Dollahoe”, “I’ll Be Glad When You Dead”. 

Insane Clown Posse - The Riddle Box

Insane Clown Posse are a band that get incredible amounts of ridicule the world over. Luckily for me, here in little ol' Wales, ICP and their seemingly endless armies of retarded, redneck juggalo "fans" aren't really a subject for ridicule, as they don't really exist. When I was big into ICP as a teenager, I didn't know a creeping shit about any of this juggalo crap. I'm not claiming ignorance as an excuse; I knew that fans painted themselves up for gigs, and that ICP always referred to fans as juggalos. But, that was about it. That's no big deal, right? I mean, Slipknot call their fans "maggots", or in a different musical world, Lady Gaga refers to her die-hard followers as "little monsters". The juggalo phenomena that has swept America over the last 15/20 years really didn't register with me until it was too late. Is it just me, or have "juggalos" become the idiots that ICP hated on in these first few releases? Just look at any juggalo story you find online. ICP would have never stood for that shit - back in the day, at least. The stupid, toothless, idiot fucktards that ICP spent so much time hating on have become their main fan-base. Dafuck?

Anyways, on with the review! I can't help it that ICP themselves have fallen into a PC-friendly formula, churning out a bunch of crap that isn't really rap or hip hop...or anything of any substance come to think of it (after the Joker's Cards finished they fell the fuck off, and hard), but when this act emerged out of the murky smog of Detroit in the 90s, they brought with them a slightly disturbing, yet wholly unique performance and sound. It is more than apparent that ICP took a lot of "inspiration" from (the excellent) Detroit rapper Esham, but so did Eminem, and anyone else who has spat violent shit over a rap beat, but by the time The Ringmaster hit the shelves, ICP were already heading in their own unique direction. When their third full length dropped (this here Riddle Box CD), the group had gained a massive local following and it's own super-funky, nasty hip hop sound, dripping in silly slasher themes and wicked rhymes which would go on to form the basis of the genre 'horrorcore'. I fuckin' hate juggalos, and I fuckin' hate ICP's weak, middle-America-white-majority-pandering material of the last decade - but their early shit is some of the best rap music in the fuckin' world. This shit fuckin' rules!

Musically, this is the darkest ICP record other than the intentionally-grim-as-fuck Hell's Pit. Lyrical themes are in the ballparks of necrophilia ("Cemetery Girl"), cannibalism ("Dead Body Man"), physical and mental retardation ("Three Rings"), paedophilia ("Lil' Somethin' Somethin'"), murder ("12"), murder of rednecks ("Chicken Huntin'"), murder of children ("Toy Box"), murder of public officials ("The Joker's Wild"), murder of pensioners ("Ol' Evil Eye").....you get the picture. And yet, the band thank God in the sleeve notes. I personally don't understand the massive fucking contradictions here, but what can you do? Fuck it. Shit is amazing. 

This was originally released in 1995 on some fucking backwards combination of Jive Records, Battery Records and the band's own Psychopathic Records. Also, please excuse the dire state that my copy of The Riddle Box is in, I haven't exactly taken care of it! 

WHEN ALL SIX HAVE RISEN, THE END WILL CONSUME US ALL.

Insane Clown Posse - The Carnival of Carnage

This is where it all began! Well, not all of it, but as far the Dark Carnival thing goes and the Joker's Card legacy shit, it all began here. ICP's debut record is like nothing else in their history and it remains to this day one of my favourite records by them. It possesses an extremely amateur mix by an at-the-time fresh-faced Mike Clark, and shows the group before they had fully adjusted to their new Insane Clown personas. The whole thing might be dressed up with a carnival vibe, but for me this record is much more Inner City than it is Insane Clown. Later records explored a much more alternative backdrop of sounds, but Carnival of Carnage fits in unusually with the more typical approach of hip hop in the early 90s, with heavy overtones of gangster rap and old-school, awkward-to-listen-to sound collages.

There are a lot of themes here that were quickly dropped as ICP gradually became more mainstream. For example, there are more misogynistic overtones present here than on any other material the band has made. The text inside the booklet also calls (rather brutally) for the all-out murder of the children of rich people, and incites some sort of crazy revolt where the ghettos will rise up and take over. Despite what "The Carnival" turned out to be, a lot of Juggalos don't seem to remember it's rather childish and worryingly genocidal roots. But, let's not forget that Violent J and Shaggy were basically kids when this record was made.

CoC gets off to a slow start. There are two (yes!) intro tracks before the first songs comes in proper on track three. "First Day Out" is one of my favourite rap songs ever, and tells the tale of going out on a date after being in prison for a while. "Red Neck Hoe" is an ICP classic, and has possibly the most inspired chorus ever; "Bitch, you's a hoe, and hoe you's a bitch; everybody know you's a funky funky bitch". It even features a rather awful contribution from either Esham or Jumpsteady (I honestly can't tell the difference here). "Is That You?" is one of the stand-out tracks on the album, despite featuring Kid Rock ("I drink Faygo it's only a buck-ten, I'ma pour it on ya tits when we fuck-en'").

If you like old-school hip hop but consider ICP to be an absolute joke (which to be fair, they have always strived to be) then this record could be your only chance at liking them. It's a bit shaky compared to other genre greats from that era but it also contains some amazing amateur rhymes ("I'm chillin', I'm illin', with my guts all over the ceilin'") that more than make up for it's crappy production. Self-released on Psychopathic Records.

"Ma'afuckers think I'm sick? You ever seen a bitch take a shit?"

For some absolute fucktarded, cuntworthy, bullshit as piss reason, I cannot post any video links in this blog post. Every time I embed a video into this post and then click preview, it disappears.  Like, totally, even from the html code as if I never put it there. Instead of previewing I tried to publish right off the bat instead, but the same shit happens; that vid just evapourates like my Friday night catch on a Saturday morning; all up outta this bitch without you seein' shit! Fuck! I'm not sure if the fault is with Blogspot or Youtube, because having embedded a video link nearly 200 times before the same way, it sure as hell ain't my fault. I blame Google (a.k.a. Skynet), who owns both of the previously mentioned websites. Maybe Google hates ICP? Sort your shit out, boss!

Dark Lotus - Black Rain

It always seems to surprise people that I love ICP and other Psychopathic acts. I had two ICP tattoos done when I was 17, but I'm no Juggalo wigger faggot. For the years leading up to and following the turn of 20, I got a bit ashamed of my body art, mainly due to the internet revealing so many Juggalos as being total and utter fucking morons, and ICP et al's output becoming embarrassingly bad. Fucking magnets, how do they work? I felt that I did not want to be associated with these fucknuts, but I had the two tattoos, there was no escape! Ha ha! As I grow older though, and after a whole bunch of soul searching, especially in the last year or so, I have come to realize that I don't actually give a shitting fuck what any cunt thinks of me. The band might be absolute tools and their fans for the most part utter fucking redneck morons, but that doesn't stop me appreciating some good ol' wigger rap music, right? No sir.

Black Rain is Dark Lotus' second album. For those who don't know/care who Dark Lotus are, they are a super-group of wiggers, containing all of ICP and Twiztid, as well as Blaze Ya Dead Homie and an interchangeable sixth member, which was ABK up until recently. Listening to this group's records is a great way to get into the Psychopathic Records roster, as it showcases work from all rappers really well, just like D12 kinda, before they became "Eminem's backing band" in a desperate bid to sell more records.

The problem that I have here is the same problem I have with most underground rap music; these fucker's just can't write a fucking chorus! That's the problem with all these fuckers from the streets, they aren't musicians or song writers, they are rappers at heart, and can't write a chorus for shit. Similar to the Immortal Technique post that went up recently, I find myself waiting and cringing for choruses to end so I can get back to listening to some mad raps, yo. The chorus to every songs feels like it's there because it has to be there, to stick to typical song structure.

Well, anyway, I think I've rambled enough for one average hip hop CD. If you like your rap songs about butchering people with hatchets and fucking ghosts then you just might like this. But I doubt it.