Waka Flocka Flame has had quite an interesting career — full of fame, feuds, and more — but best of all, he’s coming to St. Olaf in May. Here’s what you need to know about this influential rapper before seeing him perform at SpringFest.
Waka Flocka Flame was born in 1986 as Juaquin James Malphurs in Queens, NY. His family settled in Atlanta nine years later. Malphurs has been surrounded by the entertainment and music industries since childhood. His mother was formerly the manager for fellow Atlanta-based rapper Gucci Mane, as well as the CEO of an entertainment company. Malphurs had brothers and cousins involved in the Atlanta rap scene as well.
The iconic stage name Waka Flocka Flame was given to Malphurs in two parts: first, with his cousin nicknaming him “Waka” after the “Muppets” character Fozzie Bear’s signature line, and then later nicknamed “Flocka Flame” by Gucci Mane.
Gucci Mane was a central figure in the beginning of Waka Flocka Flame’s career. The two were frequent collaborators and helped to repopularize the trap sub-genre of Hip Hop. Waka Flocka Flame released his first mixtape in January of 2009, and was signed to Gucci Mane’s label, 1017 Records, later that year.
From there, Waka Flocka Flame was able to make more connections with fellow Atlanta rappers and other influential musicians, and his career took off the following year.
Without question, Waka Flocka Flame’s most well-known song is “No Hands,” a single off of the 2010 album “Flockaveli.” It is considered a staple of early-2010s club music, and appeared on various Billboard charts after its release. The track features artists Roscoe Dash and Wale, and was produced by Drumma Boy. Over the years, “No Hands” has managed to rack up nearly 750,000,000 streams on Spotify, as of March 16. That’s 600,000,000 more than his second most played song, “Hard in Da Paint.”
Many of Waka Flocka Flame’s other popular songs are collaborations with other artists, like “Round of Applause” with Drake, “Get Low” with Nicki Minaj, Tyga, and Flo Rida, and, of course, countless songs with Gucci Mane.
Although most of Waka Flocka Flame’s greatest hits came out over a decade ago, he remains relevant today. Perhaps the best example of this is when the iconic opening line of “No Hands” was transformed into a viral TikTok audio in 2020. This ultimately resulted in the song’s diamond certification in 2023, becoming his first single to sell 10,000,000 copies.
Waka Flocka Flame has continued to release albums and mixtapes in recent years, his latest release being the song “Hooked” with fellow Georgia-based rapper Nino Cahootz. While Waka Flocka Flame continues to support newer rappers from the Atlanta area like Cahootz, some of his more recent music strays a bit further from the trap genre that he helped to repopularize. In the past decade, Waka Flocka Flame has collaborated with artists ranging from pop punk band Good Charlotte to EDM producer Steve Aoki.
This year’s SpringFest starring Waka Flocka Flame will take place on May 10. Updates and further information on the event can be found on the Pause’s Instagram page, @lionspause.
