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| prev_year = 1994
| next_title = The Great Milenko
| next_year = 1997
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Riddle Box is the third studio album by the American hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse, released in 1995 on Battery Records and Island Records in association with Psychopathic Records. It is the third Joker's Card in the group's Dark Carnival mythology. It was released a second time by Battery Records and Jive Records. In 2008 it was re-released on a Riddle Box vinyl record. The album was the first Insane Clown Posse album in which the group worked with studio vocalist and guitarist Rich Murrell, who would work with the group throughout much of their career under the name Legz Diamond. It was released in four different versions, and earned a gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In 2008, Riddle Box was re-released on vinyl double LP format. In 2015, Psychopathic Records reissued the album in a 20th anniversary edition, featuring bonus tracks.
Unsatisfied with their contract with Jive Records, Insane Clown Posse's manager, Alex Abbiss, set up a deal which would sign the group with Hollywood Records. During the two days between their Jive contract expiring and being signed to Hollywood Records, ICP recorded and independently released an EP on Psychopathic Records. The EP, titled Tunnel of Love, was released June 11, 1996.
Conception
Background
In 1995, Insane Clown Posse signed a contract with the short-lived Jive Records subsidiary label Battery Records. Anticipating the album to be their first national release, the duo began work on Riddle Box. Member Joseph Bruce recalled thinking that working on the album would be "all the records we had done … rolled into one single effort." The Dark Carnival is a concept of the afterlife in which souls are sent to a form of limbo while waiting to be sent to heaven or hell based on their individual actions. These concepts are related by Insane Clown Posse in a series of albums called the six Joker's Cards. Each of the six Joker's Cards relate to a specific character — an entity of the Dark Carnival — that tries to "save the human soul" by showing the wicked inside of one's self.
Riddle Box is one of several entities used to determine the fate of the dead. Upon death, a soul enters a dark chamber containing a jack-in-the-box on an old wooden table. The front of the box has a "painted question mark faded with time," representing the mystery of your own afterlife. "Cemetery Girl" contains a sample from the Carnival of Carnage song "Guts on the Ceiling". "Toy Box" samples Gong's "The Pot Head Pixies" and the Pee-wee's Playhouse theme song.
Lyricism
The eponymous Riddle Box is a jack-in-the-box that decides whether one's soul is sent to Shangri-La or Hell's Pit in the afterlife. The album's themes revolve around death and judgement, and reveal that the fate determined by the Riddle Box can be found by looking deep within yourself, and can be changed with righteous actions. Battery/Jive Records showed little interest in promoting the album, and only released it limitedly nationwide.
Legacy
A music video for "Chicken Huntin' (Slaughter House Mix)" was shot at the State Theatre (now called the Fillmore Theatre) during an Insane Clown Posse concert. The director of the video, Paris Mayhew, wanted Insane Clown Posse to perform the song several times in order to get the footage from all angles, but the duo refused to repeat the song because it was an actual ICP concert, and not just a video shoot. The video was shot with ICP performing the song only once. The original version of "Chicken Huntin'" was performed for the video shoot, because their fans were not yet familiar with the remix. This made Jive furious, but there were no editing problems, and Violent J later referred to the video as "our freshest video ever." On December 16, 2008, Riddle Box was re-released on vinyl double LP format.
This album was responsible for expanding the Juggalo fanbase into its own culture, leading Insane Clown Posse to write the songs "What Is A Juggalo?" and "Down With The Clown" for their next album, The Great Milenko.
Track listing
;Sample credits
- Track 16 contains a sample from "Confetti Day" written by Errol Brown as recorded by Hot Chocolate.
Personnel
- Violent J – vocals
- Shaggy 2 Dope – vocals, turntables
- Mike E. Clark – turntables, production
- Rich "Legz Diamond" Murrell – skit vocals, guitar
Charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
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! scope="col"| Chart (1995)
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
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