DMX Faces Prison Time

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New York hardcore rapper DMX faces sixty days in prison after pleading guilty yesterday to violating the terms of his release following a car crash in June of 2004 at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.

The thirty-four-year-old rapper, born Earl Simmons, and an associate were accused of trying to steal a car at the airport's parking lot. Port Authority police broke up a dispute between DMX and the man believed to be the owner of the car. No one was injured in the fracas and no weapons were recovered. According to reports, Simmons might have identified himself as a federal agent during the incident.

Last December, the rapper pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and was fined, ordered to turn over his 1998 Ford Expedition and conditionally discharged. Since then, he has incurred two traffic violations -- including speeding and being involved in an accident with an unmarked police car -- while his driver's license was either suspended or revoked.

DMX made his name in hardcore rap in the Nineties with albums such as his 1998 debut It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, which bowed at Number One on the chart. He co-starred in the feature films Romeo Must Die and Cradle 2 the Grave, with action star Jet Li. His last release was 2003's Grand Champ, which became the rapper's fifth consecutive chart-topper.

DMX is scheduled for sentencing on November 17th.

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Song Stories

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Fishbone | 1985

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.

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