Are There any Good Juggalo Rappers?

The other day I was going through all the different genres of my iTunes and I realised I didn’t have much Horrorcore, besides Esham and Brotha Lynch Hung. So I went out on a mission to find some new artists. Not surprisingly, the most common rappers involved in Horrorcore are Juggalos. But grown men with painted faces obviously aren’t scary at all. I’m much more horrified by Soulja Boy and Gucci Mane songs than the looks of these guys. But I still wondered “are there any good juggalo rappers?” I already knew that ICP completely suck, so I had to find some other guys to give a listen to. This is who I ended up finding:

Twiztid

Made up of Jamie Madrox and Monoxide. They are signed to Psychopathic Records and are heavily associated with ICP. Now before you jump to any conclusions, you should at least give them a chance. I listened to 5 of their songs, which I’ll review for you.

1. Afraid Of Me: The beat isn’t too bad. Lyrically I actually thought it was pretty good. Not brilliant but better than I expected. The hook is slightly cheesy and I doubt that “the world is afraid of” never the less, 7/10

2. Buckets Of Blood: The beat has that sorta “horrorcore” sound, which suits the song. Although they rap in an accent that is just annoying. And the hook just annoyed me. Lyrically it was also worse that Afraid of Me. The bridge wasn’t good either. The beat is the only thing that I believe “saves” the song, 5.5/10

3. Circles: If you don’t like rock, don’t listen to this song. It’s just a rock song, with rather poor singing. There was only one verse that was rapping, and it reminded me of Limp Bizkit. So I suppose if you enjoy them, you might enjoy this. If not, it’s not worth your while. 4/10

4. Raw Deal: The beat sounds like it could have been made by Scott Storch. The subject matter wasn’t suited for my liking. “Imma J, U, double G, A, L, O” is not exactly wonderfully lyrical. The verses were a little better and a slight improvement compared to the previous songs. 6/10.

5. Story Of Our Lives: For me I really liked this beat. It had that strange, wacky, yet good sound to it. The lyrics weren’t too bad. The hook was ok. In the end it pretty average. This is rather what I expected from them before I started listening. 6/10

Overall: 6/10. Not as good as let’s say Esham or Brotha Lynch Hung, but some songs were okay. Definitely give a listen to Afraid of Me, Raw Deal and Story of Our Lives before making your own decision on them.

Dark Lotus

Five members make up Dark Lotus, although in total there have been 7. Past members include Anybody Killa & Marz. The 5 current members are: Violent J (of ICP), Shaggy 2 Dope (of ICP)…Ok so at first glance this looks bad, but I was hoping that the other 3 members (Blaze Ya Dead Homie and the two members of Twiztid, Jamie Madrox & Monoxide) could maybe combine to make a super-group of sorts, but that wasn’t exactly what happened… I only gave a listen to four of their songs, but I think that’s enough to give me an idea of what they’re like. Here the tracks are:

1. During An Eclipse: Okay-ish beat. The backing vocals “du du du du” lol… kinda suck and annoy me. Lyrically it was not awful, but not great either. The hook was irritating as well. Better than ICP though I guess… 5/10

2. Hatchet House: This beat reminds me of Limp Bizkit. Except for the hook, which is like a Christmas jingle. The lyrics are okay but subject matter is just sick…. 5/10

3. Hell House: The yelling in the background of the beat just ruins it. All of the rappers have done some weird thing to make their voices sound deeper, which was both annoying and messed up their flow. My least favourite of the four tracks. 3/10

4. Pass The Axe:  I actually found the hook to be catchy, it was also much better lyrically and flow-wise than all of the other songs. The beat was good-ish too. 6/10

Overall: 5/10 better than ICP alone, but definitely not great. Pass The Axe was their only relatively good song.

So in closing we get back to the question “Are there any good juggalo rappers?” And I’d have to say that unless there’s some juggalo out there I’ve never heard of and is really lyrical, it’s a no. But are there any juggalo rappers, better than ICP? Yes indeed….

By *Aboveground*