Twiztid is an American Hip-Hop duo from Livonia, Michigan, consisting of rappers Jamie Madrox and Monoxide, who put out music through their own label, Majik Ninja Entertainment.
Twiztid originally formed after the break up of The '90s Horrorcore group House of Krazees, which featured the two guys from Twiztid and another guy, the R.O.C. (They later reformed.) Without a label, Jamie and Monoxide formed a new group called Infamous Superstars Incorporated with their friend Psycho C (later Blaze Ya Dead Homie), and recorded a three song demo which they sent to former tour mates Insane Clown Posse, who loved it, but suggested they drop the third member of the group and form a duo, and subsequently Twiztid would be signed to ICP's label Psychopathic Records, who released their albums from 1998 to 2012.
Twiztid's lyrics and sound differed from House of Krazees in that while HOK was purely a Horrorcore act whose lyrics almost entirely focused on supernatural or macabre themes, or psychopathy and murder, Twiztid, while still carrying over many of these lyrical tropes, branched out into more personal subjects earning them comparisons to Eminem, who also blended Horror and comedic themed lyrics with more interpersonal subject matter. Twiztid's music style would also develop further from their Hip Hop roots into a more Rap Metal-influenced sound, particularly on Mutant (Vol. 2), Heartbroken & Homicidal and Unlikely Prescription, which almost entirely abandoned Hip Hop instrumentation. In recent years, Twiztid has taken to touring more Metal-focused festivals with a live band, contrasting their earlier days as a purely Hip Hop act when even their Rock songs would be performed live with a backing track instead of a band
. On the rap front, though, Twiztid has developed a reputation for breakneck speed technical rapping.
Twiztid was once perceived as the proteges of ICP due to their music initially being marketed to Juggalos, but overtime, they have gradually built an audience outside of ICP's fanbase and established themselves as a major act in Detroit Hip Hop in their own right. Twiztid is especially endeared to a more atypical Hip Hop audience as they're basically both big nerds who are really into Horror movies, Comic Books (Jamie's stage name, and the nickname "The Multiple Man", comes from an X-Men character) and toys, and often rap about these subjects. They are also Stoners who often rap about their love of weed, endearing them to this audience as well.
Breath it in, second hand tropes!
- Abhorrent Admirer: Jenny, the overweight, obsessed wannabe fan who calls herself a "Juffalo" (voiced by Jamie Madrox). Appears in the song "Hound Dogs" and multiple skits.
- And I Must Scream: "All of The Above", which is a POV story from the perspective of a self-aware corpse slowly rotting in his casket.
- Buried Alive: "All Of The Above", a song from the perspective of an alive corpse slowly dying in a casket.
- Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: The distinguishing feature of the duo's makeup job. It forms a nice contrast to Insane Clown Posse, who prefer more elaborate facial patterns.
- Fat and Proud: Jamie Madrox had no allusions about his weight, and had in fact made it a part of his persona.
- Averted as of late, as Jamie is quite thin now.
- Fat and Skinny: Twiztid were once identifiable thusly: Jamie was the fat one, and Monoxide was the skinny one. Both are skinny now, though.
- Hell Hotel: "Kross Roads Inn" portrays the duo as a pair of skeptical ghost hunters who find themselves trapped in one. Needless to say,
they don't remain skeptics for long. - Meaningful Name: Monoxide's original stage name, Monoxide Child, refers to his love of cigarettes. His favorite brand? Newports. His stage name is a reference to the Carbon Monoxide in cigarette smoke. Even the cover art for his solo LP looks like a pack of Newport cigarettes.
- Mockumentary: Born Twiztid. Unlike Insane Clown Posse's Shockumentary, Born Twiztid focuses solely on Jamie and Monoxide's fictional backstory and is played for laughs.
- New Sound Album: Mutant (Vol. 2) was their first full on Rap Metal album, and since then they've released a number of albums in the genre alongside their Hip Hop albums.
- N-Word Privileges: Became an issue with Jamie and Monoxide later on, as they had started out using the word nigga on some of their earlier songs, but they started to get bothered when they began to get the perception that their use of the word was emboldening some white people to use it more freely and inappropriately, so they eventually stopped using it in new songs and even dropped it from live performances of their old songs with the word and censored it on some remixes of their old songs, though the reissues of their old albums remained unedited.
- Separated at Birth: In their on-stage personas, Madrox and Monoxide claim to be twin brothers who were separated at birth and reunited as adults.
