“This chick is a sick individual”
Missy Elliot is a consistently amazing artist with some of the best beats, best wordplay, best production (thanks to a long-time collaborative relationship with Timbaland) and best dance routines around. I don’t know if I’m just overcome by a haze of Missy-love but it seems like despite elements which indicate a time and a place - the futuristic themes, fish-eye lenses, sportswear, embellished denim etc on of her videos - they still look and sound as fresh as if they were all released yesterday. Even her airy debut (The Rain) Supa Dupa Fly has a timelessness to it, and it remains as awesomely freaky cool as it was when I first saw it back in 1997.
Other songs of hers that we seriously love (it’s hard to separate the tunes from the videos so you might as well experience both at the same time)
Sock It 2 Me (featuring Da Brat) - another one of the earliest Missy Elliot songs I discovered during MTV Europe’s brief tenancy in NZ. I love the intense, ‘something-bad’s-coming-for-you’ sound of the horns.
Get Ur Freak On still incredible nearly ten years on.
Pass That Dutch (not a great quality video unfortunately). There’s a beautiful intro to this where she gives one of her frequent tributes to the late Aaliyah amongst other familiar names. This song was worked into the dance we did for the local talent quest in 2004. Takes me back!
Work It This song was big when I started listening to Mai FM again so I ended up knowing more or less every word, it’s fun catching yourself in the act of trying to sing the reversed bits.
You?
