Getting tagged as “a loosely organized hybrid gang” has long stuck under the grease-painted skin of Insane Clown Posse‘s Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. Ever since the FBI tagged the band’s large Juggalo following that way in 2011, the rappers have chafed at the suggestion that their die hards are somehow similar to the Crips or Bloods.
And now, it seems, they’re doing something about it. Well, planning to, anyway. According to The Detroit News, at this weekend’s Gathering of the Juggalos in Thronvlille, Ohio, Violent J announced that the pair are plotting to descend on Washington, D.C. on Sept. 16, 2017, for a protest march against their FBI status.
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“In 2017, the weekend of Sept. 17, we need you. We’re gonna do a (expletive) march on Washington,” J told Juggalos at a weekend seminar, as confirmed by a Billboard contributor who was on site. “They call the Juggalo World a movement, right? Well, let’s move!” J said the march will begin at the Lincoln Memorial and head down Constitution Ave. before winding up at the Washington Monument, where the rappers and fans will have a sit-down about what it means to be part of the Juggalo nation.
“We are going to explain to the world who the (expletive) we really are,” J said, adding that the march will be accompanied by a “huge” free Juggalo concert the same weekend at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia, followed by a picnic for fans on the 17th. Though pumped about the idea of bringing the heat to the nation’s capital to show the feds that they are not a gang, but just a collection of Faygo-loving music fanatics, J admitted he wasn’t sure Juggalos would turn up.
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“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “We could totally embarrass ourselves, and there could be 25 people (that show up).” ICP sued the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department over the way Juggalos were classified in the FBI’s 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit and ICP appealed the ruling, winning on appeal in an Ohio court in Sept. 2015 over claims that the designation. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan has said the FBI’s assessment violates the duo and their fans’ free speech and due process rights.