F is for Faygo

Insane Clown Posse returns to Tulsa

The Faygo on my face and arms has started to coagulate. I can taste the sickly-sweet stickiness on the edge of my mouth. More importantly, I can smell it. The cheap soda's thick chemical balm hangs in the air, co-mingling with the pungent odor of the sweaty bodies packed into the muggy concert hall of The Other Side in south Tulsa. The resulting bouquet smells like an entourage of unhinged morons.

Well, it smells like Insane Clown Posse.

"Prepare yourself—this place is about to get disgusting," someone in the crowd warned moments earlier, just before ICP took the stage. He wasn't lying.

ICP is banned from Cain's Ballroom. Incidentally, they had to change venues twice (first The Rose Bowl, then IDL Ballroom) before finding a home for this particular show—their first in Tulsa in a decade. This isn't necessarily surprising, considering the FBI classifies the rap group's fans, known as "Juggalos," as a criminal gang, but it's not the threat of violence that made finding a venue difficult—it's the Faygo. The cheap soft drink is a staple of ICP performances and an icon of Juggalo culture—a sacrament, of sorts.

There's a semi-truck out back full of the stuff—hundreds of two-liters—and throughout the show, stagehands dressed as gorillas and demons constantly shake bottles and shower the crowd. Literally dozens of bottles per song are emptied onto eager fans. The discharged soda drips from the stage lights and the speaker stacks. They soak it up. Everyone glistens. A Juggalette sitting on someone's shoulders lifts her shirt up and flashes the group; she's obliged with a Faygo shower, which she relishes, shaking her head and arching her body toward the stage, trying to catch every fizzy drop. By the end of the show, the venue floor will be covered in sticky liquid and empty two-liters.

"Whoop, whoop! someone yells between songs, the call of the Juggalo. The crowd responds with a collective, "WHOOP, WHOOP!"

Two teenagers standing in front of me surreptitiously smoke a blunt. A nearby couple sucks clown-face with abandon. Behind me, a seven-year-old girl in a Hatchet Man shirt and full Juggalo facepaint watches the stage, transfixed by the sounds and colors. This is a family affair, a celebration of generations, as I'm reminded by the abundance of children, not to mention the crowd's frequent chant of "FAM-UH-LEE!"

The horror-core duo launches into "Cemetery Girl," a 21-year-old song from the group's 1995 breakout album, Riddle Box. A young woman made up like a corpse bride slinks across the stage; her tattered dress hangs precariously off her shoulders as she gropes and teases Violent J, who is rapping about digging up the decomposing body of a murdered lover. The song (like the show itself and ICP in the abstract) is by turns vulgar, juvenile, funny, grotesquely violent, and rooted in visceral feeling. At its heart, the song is about a young person grappling with the sudden death of his girlfriend, but the pain is hidden under a veneer of lowbrow gallows humor and horror movie imagery. Lyrics that are almost tender one moment—"I need her by my side, to hold me, to squeeze me / I still have pictures, but all they do is tease me"—turn scatological and eventually pitch black as J's rap arrives at the inevitable necrophilic punchline.

A 2011 report from the National Gang Intelligence Center concluded Juggalos "generally engage in assault, robbery, theft, drug possession/sales, vandalism, and to a lesser extent murder." The fanbase's dubious reputation has resulted in a number of documentaries, think pieces, and at least one book in which reporters have attempted to unpack what it means to be a Juggalo and pinpoint the source of the notoriety. They all arrive at more or less the same conclusion: ICP's fanbase skews towards misfits and outcasts who often come from abject poverty and abusive homes; drug use and petty criminality are an incidental part of that socioeconomic makeup.

ICP founders Joseph Bruce (aka Violent J) and Joseph Utsler (aka Shaggy 2 Dope) grew up in similar circumstances—self-described poor white trash from the Detroit suburbs who had difficult home lives and brushes with the law. They've developed a passionate cult following by creating a rallying point, a sense of community, for marginalized people, especially troubled youth, who otherwise have little in the way of social support.

This crowd is more polite and respectful than the average Cain's or Brady audience. They're a rough-looking bunch, sure, but they behave like goddamn Canadians; I've never received so many apologies over the normal human collisions that occur at a show. A dancing Juggalo accidentally nudges me—he stops, his face turns serious, and he leans into my ear: "I'm so sorry, man." Another tries to squeeze past me while I'm filming on my phone—"Sorry!" he says, and before I can lower my phone and make way for him, he ducks down to avoid obscuring the shot. A bearded, legless man in a wheelchair barrels through the crowd mid-show, occasionally bumping the legs of those he's passing; the crowd parts respectfully. One Juggalo quick on his feet busts out a flashlight and leads the wheelchair with it, illuminating a path until the man has reached the very front of the audience.

People are hugging, loving on each other, smiling, reveling in the spectacle of the show.

On my way out, I'm accosted by a very large, very drunk Juggalo. He stares at me, his eyes half-closed from the intoxication, jaw hanging open in a frown. He looks like he's ready for a fight. "Hey!" he yells. He moves in quickly. I brace myself for whatever's coming. He grabs my arm, looks me in the eyes, then pulls me into his chest and gives me a hug—a big, sloppy, from-the-heart bear hug. I can feel the drying Faygo on my face bond to his, and for a brief moment we're glued together. He pulls out of the hug and looks me in the eyes again. "Hey, man"—he pounds his chest—"Whoop, whoop!"