Over the nearly two decades of the group's career, Insane Clown Posse has attracted fans and critics alike with its own unique mythology, that of the Dark Carnival. Though it appeared that the group had finished recording albums about it int he mid-'00s, in recent years ICP has announced two more albums in the Dark Carnival series.
Throughout the almost two-decade career of the Detroit rap group Insane Clown Posse,
one of the most compelling features of their recordings has been a distinct narrative arc over seven major albums in the '90s.
Beginning with the 1992 album Carnival of Carnage, the mythology dubbed the ICP Dark Carnival unrolled over a series of seven recordings. Though in the mid-00s it looked like the series would be over, in 2009 the group revived it with the new album Bang! Pow! Boom!
Originally, each album was said to represent one of six jokers cards of a mythological deck. Each of the jokers cards/albums represents a specific character in the ICP Dark Carnival. That character, as described on the album, devises a new way to tempt humans to show them their wickedness before they are sent to eternal torture.
This mythology of the ICP Dark Carnival continued through the last two albums of the series, Shangri-La and Hell's Pit, which each represented the sixth of the jokers cards, the Wraith. The group revealed the Wraith was death itself. Shangri-La, released in 2002, revealed the heaven you would enter if you repented, and Hell's Pit, in 2004, described the hell you would enter if you did not.
With the last of these jokers cards described, it seemed like the ICP Dark Carnival was over. In fact, the following 2007 album, The Tempest, touched on other material entirely. But the ICP Dark Carnival was too compelling for both fans and the group alike to leave completely, and soon, ICP announced there would be more jokers cards.
The first of the new jokers cards was the 2009 album Bang! Pow! Boom! This time around, the "Bang! Pow!" of the title wasn't a being per se, but an explosion that would clear the Dark Carnival grounds every time it got too crowded with souls.
In one skit on Bang! Pow! Boom, for instance, pedophiles, abusive husbands, and other evil types are lured to the Dark Carnival with the promise of money. When they show up, of course, everything goes bang pow, and they're wiped out for their sins and greed.
After Bang! Pow! Boom! ICP announced the arrival of another joker card, dubbed The Mighty Death Pop! Just like Bang! Pow! Boom! it will continue the theme of the second deck of the ICP Dark Carnival jokers cards.
However, not much has been revealed about how it connects to Bang! Pow! Boom! What exactly is "the Mighty Death Pop?" Fans will have to await the album's release to follow the rest of the story.
