Everyone has heard a Vanilla Ice song, and it’s probably the same one. Even if you don’t know who Vanilla Ice is by name, you would know by recognizing his enormous 90s hit, “Ice Ice Baby.” Vanilla Ice was so popular in the early 90s, his song “Ice Ice Baby” was the first hip hop song to ever top the Billboard charts. Some say that after the Beastie Boys and House of Pain, Vanilla Ice was just the third white rapper to achieve this level of mainstream success.
With all that said, how did Vanilla Ice go from chart-topping success to being an underground music star who performs at Gathering of the Juggalos?

Truth be told, Vanilla Ice always considered himself edgier and more of the underground music breed than his label and fans ever did. In fact, Vanilla Ice’s history will show you that he started getting into hip hop and break dancing  in the mid 80s long before it was popular.  Vanilla Ice’s nickname, Vanilla, came from his underground music friends because he was the only non African-American member of their friend group.

So really, it’s almost ironic that the once underground music maven would find his way to the top of the billboard charts. But even as unpredictable as that turn of events is, it doesn’t come close to outdoing how seemingly random Vanilla Ice’s collaboration with Detroic horror rap outfit Insane Clown Posse and their festival, Gathering of the Juggalos, is.

For those who are unfamiliar with Insane Clown Posse or Gathering of the Juggalos, just know that both are about as far as one can travel from the top of the charts and still call it music. I don’t say that to mean that ICP and Gathering of the Juggalos aren’t successful – in fact, they’re both enormously lucrative – but rather to mean hat sonically, one will never see an ICP at #1 on the billboard charts or see genuine coverage of Gathering of the Juggalos on MTV, VH1, or any other music television network.

However, Vanilla Ice and ICP, and those who attend Gathering of the Juggalos all have one very important trait in common: misunderstanding.

As mentioned above, Vanilla Ice always felt that his music was misconstrued as more mainstream than he wanted it to be. Believe it or not, his record label actually fabricated a biography that they deemed more appealing to the mainstream.

The same misunderstanding is felt well by Juggalos, or fans of underground music group Insane Clown Posse at Gathering of the Juggalos. They don’t feel properly understood, and bond over this fact when ever in touch with one another. Knowing that, it makes much sense that Vanilla Ice would choose to collaborate with underground music group ICP at their festival, The Gathering of the Juggalos.

So look deeper before you judge, there’s many layers to ever underground music artist’s career!

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Vanilla Ice once topped the billboard charts but now collaborates with underground music groups like Insane Clown Posse and at underground music festivals like Gathering of the Juggalos. To learn more about Gathering of the Juggalos, please visit http://insaneclownposse.com.

Practically since hip-hop was invented, its lyrical content has been the subject of much debate. But while mainstream hip-hop offers much about which to raise eyebrows, underground rap is really where the craziness begins.

Not that that's all bad. Where mainstream rap is constrained by certain radio-ready formulas, underground rap needs to worry about no such rules. In underground rap, artists can be as creative, clever, or just as crazy as they want.

In certain underground rap circles, shocking, outrageous content is prized -- no subject is too taboo. Here are five underground rap artists whose lyrics often aren't for the faint of heart.

Cage: The underground rap artist born Chris Palko was known at the beginning of his career for broaching uncomfortable subjects and often being "Crazy for the sake of being crazy," as he himself put it in interviews. Much of his early material told long, involved tales of drug use and included violent fantasies.

Cage has much matured as an underground rap artist, these days, and often draws from his own uncomfortable personal history for lyrics. He never shies away from taboo subjects when discussing them, though, and Cage songs still broach subjects like child abuse, mental illness, and addiction.

Necro: Necro often collaborated with Cage when the two rappers were younger. However, as Cafe's style of underground rap became more confessional, Necro's became more and more fantasy-driven. These days, Necro is considered largely to be a horrorcore artist whose music bears a metal influence and whose lyrical subjects touch on violence and the occult.

Twiztid: This underground rap group is signed to Insane Clown Posse's Psychopathic Records, and Twiztid lyrics live up to the precedent set by the label. Twiztid lyrics definitely fall under the category of horrorcore, and unabashedly so. With album titles like Heartbroken and Homicidal, it's clear that Twiztid lyrics are often uber-violent.

From the group's first album, Mostateless, Twiztid lyrics have included raps about murder, drug use, and even more out-there Twiztid lyrics subjects like the undead. That's not to say that Twiztid lyrics are meant to be taken literally, though.

The kind of horror and mayhem expressed in Twiztid lyrics are clearly flights of fantasy influenced by horror movies, comic books, and the like. The group has cited rock acts like KISS as an influence on Twiztid lyrics, for example.

Insane Clown Posse: Insane Clown Posse lyrics influenced Twiztid lyrics, and those of other similar acts. In fact, Insane Clown Posse lyrics were actually influenced by those of earlier Detroit acts like Esham and his group Natas. Those artists' "acid rap" style influenced certain aspects of Insane Clown Posse lyrics, like a particular psychedelic vibe and out-there imagery.

But Insane Clown Posse lyrics were also influenced by their beloved comic books and horror movies. That filtered into Insane Clown Posse lyrics that never shied away from outrageous tales of violence and gore.

Still, like Twiztid, Insane Clown Posse lyrics were never meant to be taken seriously. In fact, a close reading of Insane Clown Posse lyrics shows that the violence only befalls evil people who perhaps deserve an unhappy end.

The Insane Clown Posse lyrics from the band's Dark Carnival mythical cycle also served a didactic purpose. It turned out all of those crazy Insane Clown Posse lyrics were actually meant to serve as moral fables, instructing listeners on how not to act. Still, the pictures they painted were definitely shocking at the surface.

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If anyone best represents the certain crazy, colorful, unique underground rap scene known as horrorcore in its current form, it's Insane Clown Posse. They've been going for more than two decades now, so to learn more about the group's influential history in underground rap, visit the official Insane Clown Posse web site at http://www.insaneclownposse.com.