1. Missy Elliott collaborated with album's producer and Swing Mob cohort Timbaland to work in songwriting and production for other acts, yielding commercially successful releases for 702, Aaliyah, SWV, and Total.
65 Facts About Missy Elliott
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Missy Elliott was the first female rapper to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and received the MTV VMAs Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for her impact on the music video landscape.
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Melissa Arnette Missy Elliott was born on July 1,1971, at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Portsmouth, Virginia, the only child of power company dispatcher Patricia and former Marine Ronnie Missy Elliott.
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Missy Elliott grew up in an active church choir family, where singing was a normal part of her youth.
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Missy Elliott blossomed during this part of her life, enjoying school for the friendships that she formed even though she had little interest in schoolwork.
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In one violent incident, her father dislocated her mother's shoulders; during another, Missy Elliott herself was threatened by her father with a gun.
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When Missy Elliott was 14, her mother decided to end the situation and fled with Missy Elliott on the pretext of taking a joyride on a local bus.
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Missy Elliott told her mother that she feared her father would kill them both for leaving.
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Missy Elliott later said that she occasionally speaks to her father, but has not forgiven him for abusing her mother.
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Missy Elliott was introduced to her neighborhood friend Timothy Mosley by Melvin Barcliff who was trying to recruit his Dj Timbaland to be the group's producer and began making demo tracks, among them included the 1991 promo "First Move".
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Missy Elliott wrote the bulk of Total's second and final album Kima, Keisha, and Pam and Nicole Wray's debut Make It Hot.
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In 1996, Missy Elliott appeared on the Men of Vizion's remix of "Do Thangz" which was produced by Rodney Jerkins.
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Missy Elliott continued to work with other artists and appeared on LSG's song "All the Time" with Gerald Levert, Keith Sweat, Johnny Gill, Faith Evans, and Coko in 1997 on Levert Sweat Gill classic album.
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Missy Elliott wore an oversized trash-bag looking jumpsuit in the music video, and at Lilith Fair, an outfit media articles have considered one of her most recognizable "fashion moments".
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The year saw Missy Elliott perform live at the MTV Video Music Awards show on a remix to Lil' Kim's "Ladies Night" with fellow rappers Da Brat, Angie Martinez and TLC-rapper Left Eye.
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Missy Elliott co-wrote and co-produced two tracks on Whitney Houston's 1998 album My Love Is Your Love, providing vocal cameos for "In My Business" and "Oh Yes".
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Missy Elliott produced and made a guest appearance on Spice Girl Melanie Brown's debut solo single, "I Want You Back", which topped the UK Singles Chart in Brown's native United Kingdom and is Missy Elliott's only chart-topping song in that country.
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Also in 1999, Missy Elliott was featured, alongside Da Brat, on the official remix to a Mariah Carey single "Heartbreaker".
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The remainder of the video was the more upbeat "4 My People", contained scenes of people dancing happily in front of American flags and Missy Elliott dressed in red, white and blue.
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Tweet's own debut single, "Oops ", was co-written by Missy Elliott and released through Goldmind in February 2002.
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In 2002, Missy Elliott won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance for "Get Ur Freak On".
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Missy Elliott was featured on Wyclef Jean's "Party to Damascus" and Ghostface Killah's "Tush" singles, the latter of which became a minor 2004 dance hit, and had a pivotal role in the film Honey.
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Missy Elliott furthered her relationship with Madonna by performing the controversial 2003 MTV Video Music Awards show opening alongside Madonna, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
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Missy Elliott wanted to "give people the unexpected" by utilizing producers other than Timbaland and a "more to the center" sound not as far left as her other music.
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Missy Elliott received 5 Grammy nominations in 2005, including one for Best Rap Album for The Cookbook.
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Missy Elliott won Best Female Hip Hop Artist at the 2005 American Music Awards, and was nominated for Best International Female Artist at the 2006 BRIT Awards.
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Missy Elliott was an honoree of the 2007 VH1 Hip Hop Honors.
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Missy Elliott released the song "Best, Best" in the same year and renamed the albums previous title FANomenal to its tentative title Block Party.
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Missy Elliott later decided against Block Party and four years later, in 2012, Elliott released two Timbaland-produced singles exclusively to iTunes.
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In between the recording of her seventh album, Missy Elliott found success behind the scenes.
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Missy Elliott produced Monica's singles "Anything " and "Until It's Gone".
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In December 2013, Missy Elliott received a Grammy nomination with Fantasia and Kelly Rowland for their song "Without Me".
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In 2015, Missy Elliott performed at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show with Katy Perry.
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On February 3,2015, it was confirmed that Missy Elliott would be a feature on the upcoming remix to Diplo and Skrillex's "Take U There".
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On February 7,2016, the day of the fiftieth Super Bowl, Missy Elliott released a promotional single, "Pep Rally".
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Later that month, Missy Elliott reunited with former protegee Tweet and frequent collaborator Timbaland on the cut "Somebody Else Will" taken from the former's third studio album, Charlene.
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The midnight of January 27,2017, saw the full-length release to a new Missy Elliott single titled "I'm Better", featuring production and vocal assistance from recurring sideman Lamb and shared directing credit by Missy Elliott and longtime colleague Dave Meyers.
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In July 2018, Missy Elliott teased fans by appearing on a snippet nicknamed "ID" by Skrillex, released in 2023 as RATATA.
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One month later, Missy Elliott appeared on the Ariana Grande number "Borderline", taken from the singer's fourth studio album Sweetener.
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In October 2018, Missy Elliott announced that she is working on her new album, which would be released in 2019.
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On June 13,2019, Missy Elliott was inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, becoming the first female rapper to receive this honor.
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Missy Elliott received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music, and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award.
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Missy Elliott was the first female rapper to receive the award.
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Missy Elliott received the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Music Pioneer Award at the United Nations in 2019 in recognition for her achievements in music and being a leader.
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Missy Elliott released her first extended play on August 23,2019, titled Iconology.
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Missy Elliott was motivated to write uplifting music to counter mainstream trends and encourage more dance music to feel good.
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On June 26,2020, Missy Elliott appeared on the official remix to Toni Braxton's single "Do It".
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On January 11,2021, Missy Elliott appeared on the single "ATM" by Bree Runway.
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Missy Elliott directed the music video for "Twerkulator" by the City Girls in July 2021.
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On February 17,2023, Missy Elliott appeared on the track "RATATA" produced by Skrillex and Mr Oizo, the second track on Skrillex's LP "Quest For Fire".
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When Missy Elliott asked him, he refused, believing this dramatized his character; "the movie is about her life, her story, that goes deeper than putting me into the movie".
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In 2007, Missy Elliott appeared on an ABC's Extreme Makeover and awarded four scholarships for a weight loss program to four underprivileged teens.
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The New Yorker stated that Missy Elliott became the first Black female rapper to reach the mainstream in Middle America.
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For Los Angeles Times writer Gerrick D Kennedy, Elliott "ushered in a new era of creatively ambitious music videos".
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Commercially, Missy Elliott led female hip hop album sales during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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ABC website editor Gab Burke expressed that Missy Elliott "railed against the male-dominated mainstream rap scene throughout her career, constantly pushed the boundaries, and cemented a place for women in hip hop".
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Missy Elliott has won four Grammy Awards, eight MTV Video Music Awards, two American Music Awards, six BET Awards, and a Billboard Women in Music award for Innovator.
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On June 13,2019, Missy Elliott was inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, becoming the first female rapper to receive this honor, and the third overall, following Jay-Z and Jermaine Dupri.
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Also in 2019, Missy Elliott received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music, and became the first female rapper to receive the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award by MTV.
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In 2018, Missy Elliott received Essence magazine's Black Women In Music honor, and in 2019, she was presented with the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Music Pioneer Award at the United Nations.
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In November 2021, Missy Elliott was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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In December 2022, Missy Elliott received a second honorary doctorate, this time from Norfolk State University, who helped rename a Portsmouth street after her.
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Missy Elliott was presented with a key to the city of Portsmouth.
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In June 2011, Missy Elliott told People magazine that her absence from the music industry was due to having Graves' disease, with which she was diagnosed after she nearly crashed her car from having severe leg spasms while driving.
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Missy Elliott experienced severe symptoms from the condition and could not even hold a pen to write songs.