While rocking to-Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott's latest sonic hit, Pass That Dutch, a tune fully armed with her trademark party-moving beats, you can rest assure that this is Missy at, her finest--she dropped another hit record from her gage of platinum albums.
The hip-hop mainstay isn't afraid to keep fans guessing, so she strategically put aside all pre-conceived notions and prior achievements to reinvent herself once again to bring fans music "as real as you can get for a Missy album" in her newly released CD, This Is Not A Test
The 32-year-old innovator lets it be known through the course of each reinvention, she is a songwriter first; producer second, and then a rap artist. All the while, the creative guru continues to preserve her infectious distinctive sound.
"Basically I don't listen to radio," Missy reveals about her secret formulas. "I listen to all old-school and hip-hop. If someone says that sounds like you've done it before, then I won't do it. I switch it up. I get ideas from either my experiences or somebody else's experiences, but most of the time I'm just in the studio and it's whatever the track makes me feel, then I write to it."
Since her 1997 smash debut album Supa Dupa Fly, Missy built her credibility on her original style, wicked beats, twisted videos, and unique rhymes, which in all remain a phenomenon after her fifth album in just six years.
She exhibits her vocals in It's Real, Is This Our Last Time, featuring label mate Fabolous and Dats What I'm Talkin About, featuring R. Kelly. Missy has fun with club bangers I'm Really Hot, Keep It Movin, featuring Elephant Man, Pump It Up with Nelly and Let Me Fix My Weave.
Missy says she especially wants fans to heed the message Not Perfect. The latter uses heartfelt lyrics to remind fans that the superstar is not superhuman. The Clark Sisters croon on the cut, "I'm not perfect just like you/so come and let me give you a hug/I got problems just like you/so won't nobody sit here and judge. In the primal anthem Wake Up, Missy does just that to hip-hop fans with the help of Grammy Award-winning rap artist Jay-Z. Together their rhymes weigh in on Black people quitting the materialistic and thug life. She says the hefty message is a change to what you've heard on her records.
"Wake Up is a record that people need to hear." Missy tells JET after one of her four daily workout sessions. "I always tell people about having materialistic things. As an artist were become role models even though we don't want to because we feel a lot of times we can't make mistakes. But in Wake Up, I felt like I'm going to use being an artist to my advantage.
"If you don't have a gun it's all right, if you make legal money it's all right, if you got to wear the same jeans it's all right, if you don't have the wheels to spin it's all right," Missy rhymes, citing lyrics from the record. "I can't touch the whole world and I can't save the whole world. but somebody is listening."
R&B singers Mary J. Blige and Monica and dance-hall musician Beenie Man also make cameo appearances on This Is Not A Test!'
Missy's fans and friends have been dropping their jaws at her newest invention: her retooled curvy figure. Since learning of her high blood pressure and even higher risk of stroke over a year ago, the spunky megatalent worked it and has shed 71 pounds. But the slimmed-down Missy says she does not know which was more difficult: losing the load or keeping it off.
"I'm from the South and we like to eat," the Virginia-native explains, giggling. "So it's plenty times I go in the kitchen. My assistant lives with me, and he eats pretty much the way he wants to eat, so he might have like an apple pie in there or some fries and stuff like that, so I'm human and I still cheat. But I know once I eat that apple pie. I know I got to go run it off for like an hour and a half sometimes.
"That's pretty much what I've been doing because I've been cheating actually too much. I've been doing a lot of running, a lot of dance classes and drinking a lot of water."
Teamed with beatmaster Timbaland and video director Dave Meyers, Missy has been elevating the game since she first "hee-hee-haw'd" on the set. With a bubbly personality and vivid imagination, it's incredible that this trendsetter only needs a "Coke. a pack of peanut M&Ms and the lights cut down low" to put down her boisterous tracks in the studio and map out her futuristic videos.
"About 97 [percent] of the videos are my ideas. If I could type the videos, then I would. But that is where the other 3 percent comes from, the director. I have over half of the input of the videos that I do, and they really are my ideas, it's just that the director takes like a day and throws his spikes on it. I love it that way, because nobody can really interpret your vision but you."
During her stellar career, Missy's booty-shakers such as The Rain, Hot Boyz, One Minute Man, Scream A.K.A. Itchin', Get Ur Freak On, Gossip Folks, and Work It have earned her dozens of music honors, including two Grammys, a 2003 American Music Award and MTV's 2003 Video of the Year for Work It.
It wasn't until she accepted these awards that Missy gave herself her first "dap" for making successful waves in the industry.
"The first award I had ever won I looked at it like 'Wow,' because I was used to seeing as a kid all the big people like Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson get up there and get awards and do their acceptance speech. So when I was able to get up there and do that, I felt like. 'Man, this must be it right here.'
"And then when I look back at all the people I've had a chance to work with, from the big names to the small names, I felt like, I deserve a little pat on the back. I don't feel like I've accomplished everything yet, but when I first did that I felt like I could feel good for a second. It's a beautiful thing. I was blessed to be able to do records for people like Janet (Jackson) or Mariah (Carey) or Whitney (Houston)."
Missy's 2002 double platinum album Under Construction was inspired in part by the devastating and sudden loss of the talented songstress land her close friend) Aaliyah in 2001. Not only was the, production process heading to Missy, the hard work was felt by others; Under Construction nabbed five Grammy nominations, including the prestigious Album of the Year, for next month's ceremony.
In a league of her own, the savvy businesswoman is a self-made franchise. She is the CEO of her own record label, The GoldMind Inc,, and her endorsement deals with Coca-Cola, Gap and Adidas have propelled her hip-hop image into the mainstream. In fact, Missy uses this influence as spokesperson for Break The Cycle, an organization dedicated to helping young people to break the chain of' domestic abuse, an issue that hits close to home for Missy.
Although the multimedia magnet appears as herself in the movie Honey, Missy says she's going to leave her acting to strictly commercials for a while.
"I've had tons and tons of requests (to act in movies), probably immediately from the time I came out, but I believe when you go over to that side. you have to know that's what you want to do. You have to he good at it, because those artists, those actors and actresses, they don't play about coming aver to their side trying to take their set. They are ready to tear you down if you can't act, so I want to take my time with that. That's not something that I'm going to jump right into to try to get. a Halle Berry role and stuff like that." Missy says, laughing. "I love music, so that's what I'm going to stick to for a long minute."
That's music to fans' ears because Missy, a true-to-the-heart "Momma's girl," doesn't see herself slowing down anytime soon. She says she can't remember the last time she took a vacation and easily becomes bored if she's not in the studio. "I believe in this game, when you're an artist, it's a time limit," Missy admits. "Some people might not feel like that, but you're not going to be rapping at 80 years old, and you ain't going to be rapping at 50 either. So. for me, I just want to concentrate on my artists and build my label right now, so when I'm older, I can sit back and relax."
With her bold style and sound, Missy has used her charismatic musical talent to cross over to so many genres. So, what's left for her to do? "It would be unique to try a century record. I've done the house lining, I've done the techno thing, I've done the old-school, I've done the pop, I think now I should try a country record.
"That's the only lining pretty much left." she laughs.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group