“We’ve always been kind of known as the ‘World’s Most-Hated Band,’ and that’s for real,” says Violent J of Detroit’s notorious, face-painted hardcore hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse, as he sits with his ICP partner of three decades, Shaggy 2 Dope, at Yahoo Entertainment on the release day of their 15th studio album, Fearless Fred Fury. “Our whole career, [we have been] battling all that. We’ve always dreaded being old-school. We don’t want to be labeled old-school. But once we got to the point where we’re undeniably old-school, it seems to be, by far, the most rewarding part of our career.”

“Big time. You’re an elder. We get accepted,” says Shaggy. “Earlier today, we got called ‘hip-hop legends.’ It’s like, wow, our whole career had even trouble being accepted as hip-hop, and now we’re being considered hip-hop legends.”

Maybe so, but one faction that hasn’t been so accepting is the FBI’s Justice Department’s Gang Task Force, which in 2011 shockingly labeled the fanbase that has always stood by Insane Clown Posse, the Juggalos, “a loosely organized hybrid gang.”

“Now, picture middle-town America, Grass Lake, Iowa, any little town in America,” says an incredulous Shaggy, whose real name is Joseph Utsler. “You got these 15-year-old kids, 14-year-old kids, who go to Hot Topic and buy ICP shirts and are hanging at the mall. They’re a f***ing a gang now? MS-13, Bloods and Crips, the Aryan Nation and Black Panthers, f***ing whatever gang existed — they’re that?”

In January 2014, the outraged duo, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, sued the FBI “to ensure the right of Juggalos everywhere to gather together and express their support of the ICP without having to worry about being unfairly targeted and harassed by law enforcement.” A book by Michigan author Steve Miller, Juggalo: Insane Clown Posse and the World They Made, detailed the band’s fight with the FBI, which Insane Clown Posse still steadfastly believe was all part of a scheme to line corrupt small-town police departments’ pockets.

“If you’re in a rural area and you’re a police officer, and you can make the argument that there’s an active gang in your neighborhood, you get some sort of government funding to combat that gang,” Violent J (real name: Joseph Bruce) says.

“You get free billy clubs. You get free Tasers, maybe a police car, an SUV in your police department,” adds Shaggy.

“So by claiming Juggalos are a gang, or at least putting your vote to say Juggalos are a gang, it creates a lot of funding for a lot of small-town police officers that don’t normally get funding for that type of thing, and they get to get new cushions on their cruisers for their butts,” says Violent J.

The ICP/FBI battle climaxed on Sept. 16, 2017, when what the duo estimate was 4,500 to 5,000 Juggalos marched on Washington, D.C., to protest the gang classification. According to multiple reports, the turnout greatly outnumbered a pro-Trump rally taking place at the National Mall that same day. And this gathering of the Juggalos made history.

“It was big National Mall, all that s***,” Shaggy recalls. “We were trying to get into every venue within an hour of Washington, D.C., to put on a free concert. Well, No. 1, nobody showed up for the free concert as far as bands go, and we were like, ‘What do we do?’ So, by the miracle of f***ing Dark Carnival itself, somehow we played at the National Mall in front of that f***ing big-ass pool that Martin Luther King did I had a f***ing dream speech, Forrest Gump, all that s***. So now we had a stage set up, and we had a concert right there. Only three other acts did that. I know Bob Dylan was one, I forget the other two. And we were one of them.”

Although Insane Clown Posse will, of course, never be held in the same esteem as Dylan, they are no doubt household names. Earlier this year, there was an entire ICP-themed Fresh Off the Boat episode. Family, an upcoming movie starring Kate McKinnon and Taylor Schilling, depicts the life of aJuggalette. A recent episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race dropped a pun about an “Insane Clown P***y.” (“That’s kind of gross, but still at the same time I’m glad we’re mixed up in that culture, because we accept everybody,” laughs Shaggy.) And Saturday Night Live has done multiple skits parodying ICP’s wild and infamous Gathering of the Juggalos festival. (The real festival, which isn’t all that different from SNL’s spoofs, celebrates its 20th anniversary with a “super-Gathering” this year.)