Icp's Biography

Former members of the gang Inner City Posse, ICP used to be three members, the third, Shaggy's brother John Kickchass. They recorded a few little bullshit albums like "Bassment Cutz" and "Dog Beats" but John quit the group over various bullshit, leaving Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope as the sole rappers. Together, with their manager Alex Abbiss, they started Psychopathic Records and they released the first of 6 Joker's Cards, "Carnival of Carnage". Featuring local big timers Esham and Kid Rock, the album sold like shit, but helped get their name out in Detroit. Their next album, an EP called "Beverly Kills" got them more recognition, a few more bucks, and some more record sales. Around this time, they also hooked up with Mike E. Clark, the man who would go on to make almost every single beat ICP ever rapped to for the next 9 years or so. "Ringmaster", the 2nd Joker's Card, came next and is hailed as a classic among juggalos. It's also when ICP's popularity began to branch outside of Detroit and into surrounding cities such as Toledo. Up next was the EP "Terror Wheel" which was a pretty big underground success for ICP in Detroit and finally got major record label attention when Jive Records gave them a crap-ass contract for their next 5 albums. The next on that list was "Riddle Box" which Jive Records had promised to put out nationwide, but instead only put out in Detroit. Frustrated with Jive, ICP packed their shit and drove to Dallas, Texas where they spent 2 months selling CDs out of the backs of their vans and getting every record store in the city to stock ICP albums. Suddenly, Dallas was a big time Clown Town. Jive took notice, and was quite happy about the success ICP was having outside of Detroit, but ICP refused to hand over another fuckin' album to them and so they were deadlocked until 1997 when Hollywood Records, owned by Disney, paid Jive one million dollars to release ICP from their contract. They did, and ICP immediately signed to Hollywood Records. Hollywood released the 4th Joker's Card, "The Great Milenko" in July 1997 and 6 hours later, it was pulled out of record stores as Disney issued a nationwide recall of the album. Disney was currently under the pressure of the Southern Baptist organization due to their sponsership of "Gay Day" at Disneyland and in order to try to seperate themselves from any negativity, Disney tried to hide it's association with ICP. It backfired though, when Alex Abbiss called up the L.A. Times and told them the whole story. The next day it was on the front page of the Times and every newspaper and news channel was covering it the day after. It blew up like hotcakes and Disney got caught with their pants down. They immediately dropped ICP from the record label and made them pay a boatload of money just to get the rights to their album back. Island Records fronted the money and, after a bidding war with many other record labels (including Death Row fucking Records), they signed ICP to a contract and re-released "The Great Milenko" which went on to become Billboard's longest charted rap album. Next up was the 5th Joker's Card, "The Amazing Jeckel Brothers" (I'm skipping all the misc. shit like Forgotten Freshness albums and such). "Jeckel Bros." debuted at #4 on the Billboard charts, riding the coattails of the "Milenko" controversy and shocking the fuck out of the music industry. To this date, it remains ICP's best debut on the Billboard charts. Of course, the album dropped like a fuckin' rock after that, but hey, what ya gonna do? They filmed a movie during this time as well, called "Big Money Hustlas" which sold amazingly well and juggalos loved it. The movie was tied up in court for almost 2 years and didn't actually end up seeing release until late 2000, when it was filmed in 1998-1999. Next up was a 2 CD release entitled "Bizzar" and "Bizaar". They released both of those albums (and Twiztid's "Freekshow") all on the same day, Halloween of 2000......putting out 3 highly awaited albums on the same day isn't exactly smart business and record sales showed it when the ICP albums charted at #20 and #21 respectively and dropped like heavier-than-AJB rocks from there. Many juggalos were also not very fond of these albums and to this day, they are somewhat regarded as pretty bad albums from a group that previously had a solid track record of damn good albums. Next was the album debut of ICP-fronted supergroup, Dark Lotus. At the Gathering of the Juggalos in 2001, Dark Lotus was released. The original lineup of the group consisted of ICP, Twiztid, Blaze, and Marz. Marz was kicked out of the group a few weeks after the album was released and later replaced by Anybody Killa. The album though, is considered by most to be a classic and lived up to it's 3-years-in-the-making hype. Finally, ICP went into hiding for 8 months. No interviews, no tours, no nothing. No one knew where they were. While they hid, they changed their appearanes, their face paint, J lost weight, Shaggy grew out his dreadlocks again, and when they returned in July of 2002, they were packing the 6th Joker's Card along with them. It was released on Nov. 5th of 2002. Entitled "The Wraith: Shangri-La", it is one half of the 6th and final Joker's Card in the series. Opinions varied wildly, many loved it, some hated it, some were just utterly confuckin'fused by the message in the last song.

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