At the 2021 Gathering of the Juggalos, Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J revealed that he is suffering from heart failure. But he isn’t hanging up his mic and makeup kit yet; J and Shaggy 2 Dope announced a massive 2022 “farewell tour.”
His moving speech to the Juggalos was captured in fan footage, as part of an explanation as to why he had missed his scheduled performance. “We’ve got some pretty personal news to share,” he said.
“For those of you that haven’t been to my house, the studio is probably, you know, 40 yards from my front door. So, I noticed walking out to the studio every day, by the time I got to the fucking studio, I was like, winded… Then when I’d walk up to my mailbox at the front, I’d be like, ‘Oh fuck, I’ve got to take a break.’ What the fuck’s the problem, you know?”
He continued, “We went to the hospital to see what’s going on. We didn’t want to go the hospital because it was all packed full of COVID patients — I didn’t have COVID or anything like that — But they did what they call an ultrasound… The lady who was looking at my heart, we could tell she was tripping about something, but she wasn’t a doctor… The doctors were all tied up upstairs in the hospital, understandably. She told me, ‘They want you to go straight home, get in bed and they’ll call you first thing in the morning.’
“I kinda had a feeling they were gonna tell me to go the hospital when they called. They called before the birds even woke up and fucking told me to go to the hospital. They took me in the back and shit, and basically they just came out and told me, man, I had heart failure. That scared the shit out of me.”
The problem, he said, is that, “Basically your heart is two parts, and they both beat in a fucking rhythm. Well, my two parts were pretty much spazzing out.”
J said, “I have what they call A-fib [atrial fibrillation]. There’s two types of A-fib, where I understand it: a minor one, and a more serious one, and they told me I got the more serious one.”
He hopes to lead a long and fulfilling life, and so far his treatments have partially worked, though medical professionals believe his recovery may be temporary. “We can’t really tour any more the way we were touring,” he said. But with that in mind, J plans to go out with a bang.
“We’re gonna do one more tour next year around the world,” he announced. “We’re gonna do all the major markets in the United States, and the b-markets, and then we’re gonna go to Europe, Canada and Australia. It’s gonna be a slow tour. It’s only gonna be like three or four shows a week. It’s gonna be a farewell tour.”
He also left the door open for annual farewell tours thereafter. And as for ICP’s yearly extravaganzas, J plans to be on stage for all of them for the foreseeable future. “We’re gonna play every Juggalo weekend, every Hallowicked, every fucking Ballers [Christmas Party], every event. We’re gonna do a show somewhere every month — one show a month is our plan.”
He added, “Without touring, that absolutely means we’re gonna put out more music. And I want to make it clear: making music is not affected in any way, shape or form by anything going on with Shaggy or myself health-wise. We’re ready to fucking kick ass in the studio, and that’s a fact.”
Check out fan footage of Violent J’s speech below. Earlier this year, Insane Clown Posse released the new EP Yum Yum’s Lure,
