Ringmaster is the second studio album by American hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse, and their second Joker Card in the first Deck of the Dark Carnival mythology.

Its promotional single, "Chicken Huntin'" was remixed and featured on the duo's third studio album, Riddle Box, which was released the following year.

[1] The Carnival, a metaphoric limbo in which the lives of the dead await to be judged, was planned to be elaborated through a series of stories called Joker's Cards, each of which offers a specific lesson designed to change the "evil ways" of listeners before "the end consumes us all.

To increase interest and popularity, they produced a mass amount of promotional material such as demo packages, flyers, and fan club newsletters.

[3] 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.

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.

[9][10] To help promote the album, Insane Clown Posse created the comic book Wicked Clownz featuring themselves and the Ringmaster character.

[2] In his 2004 edition of The Great Rock Discography series, music historian Martin C. Strong gave the album four out of ten stars.

[10] Steve 'Flash' Juon of RapReviews stated: "they had improved substantially from their amateur Inner City Posse days, and Ringmaster was the first album to actually give name to the Dark Carnival and make it the block their entire Juggalo empire was built on.

[14] Ringmaster's popularity enabled Insane Clown Posse to sell out larger nightclubs across their hometown of Detroit, Michigan such as St. Andrews Hall and the State Theatre.

[2] Because members Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope made reference to the Detroit-produced soft drink Faygo in their songs, they "figured it would be cool to have some on stage with [them].

[16] The idea was later scrapped due to their label at the time, Hollywood Records, rejecting the track for its violent lyrics, as they would with several of the group's other songs.