Atlanta's Waka Flocka Flame — the name comes partly from a Fozzie Bear catchphrase — has charisma enough for a dozen MCs. Which is good, since his skills are negligible. On his debut, Waka reduces hip-hop to a carnival-barker routine, blasting out exclamations ("Yay!" "Bang!") over bristling beats by producer Lex Luger. Waka barely bothers to write rhymes, but Flockaveli is hypnotic, focusing attention on the details beneath the bombast. In songs like "Bustin' at 'Em," you hang on every twist of Waka's raised voice while waiting — for a second or two at most — for the next "Bow!" to come crashing down.

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“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.