Missy Elliott
Melissa Arnette "Missy" Elliott (born July 1, 1971), also known as Misdemeanor,[3][4] is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. She began on her musical career as a member of the R&B girl group Sista during the 1990s, who were part of the larger musical collective Swing Mob—led by DeVante Swing of Jodeci. The former group's debut album, 4 All the Sistas Around da World (1994) was released by Elektra Records and met with positive critical reception despite commercial failure. She 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. She then re-emerged as a solo act with numerous collaborations and guest appearances by 1996, and in July of the following year, she released her debut studio album, Supa Dupa Fly (1997).
Missy Elliott
Melissa Arnette Elliott
- Misdemeanor
July 1, 1971
Portsmouth, Virginia, U.S.
- Rapper
- singer
- songwriter
- record producer
1991–present
As her mainstream breakthrough, the album was met with critical and commercial success, peaking at number three on the Billboard 200 and spawning the Billboard Hot 100-top 20 single "Sock It 2 Me" (featuring Da Brat).[5] Her second album, Da Real World (1999) produced the singles "She's a Bitch", "All n My Grill" (featuring Big Boi and Nicole Wray), and "Hot Boyz" (remixed featuring Lil' Mo, Nas, Eve and Q-Tip). The latter song set a 19-year record for most weeks atop the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs by January 2000 (until Lil Nas X's 2019 single "Old Town Road"), and spent 18 weeks atop the Hot Rap Songs chart from December 1999 to March 2000. Her third and fourth albums, Miss E... So Addictive (2001) and Under Construction (2002) made her the sole recipient of both Grammy Awards for Best Female Rap Solo Performance with their respective songs "Scream a.k.a. Itchin" (featuring Timbaland) and "Work It." Furthermore, the albums peaked at numbers two and three on the Billboard 200, respectively, while "Work It" peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100.
Her fifth album, This Is Not a Test! (2003) was followed by The Cookbook (2005), her sixth album which matched Under Construction as her highest charting release while spawning the Hot 100 top three single, "Lose Control" (featuring Ciara and Fatman Scoop).[6] Following a long-term hiatus, her debut extended play, Iconology (2019) marked her first release in 14 years.
Elliott has received numerous accolades, including four Grammy Awards.[7][8][9] Her overall discography has sold 40 million records worldwide,[10] making her the best-selling female rapper in Nielsen Music history according to Billboard.[11] She was the first woman 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.[12][13] In 2020, Billboard ranked her at No. 5 on their list of the 100 greatest music video artists of all time.[14] In 2021, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2023, she became the first woman rapper to be nominated and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[15][16][17]
Early life[edit]
Melissa Arnette Elliott[18] was born at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Portsmouth, Virginia,[19][20] on July 1, 1971,[21] the only child of power company dispatcher Patricia and former Marine Ronnie Elliott.[18][22][23] She grew up in an active church choir family, where singing was a normal part of her youth. At the age of four, she wanted to be a performer, with biographer Veronica A. Davis later writing that she "would sing and perform for her family". In later years, she feared no one would take her seriously because she was always the class clown.[24] While her father was an active Marine, the family lived in a manufactured home community in Jacksonville, North Carolina.[24][20] She blossomed during this part of her life, enjoying school for the friendships that she formed even though she had little interest in schoolwork. When her father returned from the Marines, the family moved back to Virginia, where they lived in extreme poverty.[22]
Life in Virginia saw many hardships, and Elliott has talked about seeing her mother suffer domestic abuse at the hands of her father; she refused to attend sleepovers at her friends' homes out of fear that she would find her mother dead upon returning home.[25] When she was eight, she was sexually abused by a cousin. In one violent incident, her father dislocated her mother's shoulders; during another, Elliott herself was threatened by her father with a gun.[25] When Elliott was 14, her mother decided to end the situation and fled with Elliott on the pretext of taking a joyride on a local bus. In reality, the pair had found refuge at a family member's home, where their possessions were stored in a loaded U-Haul truck.[22] Elliott told her mother that she feared her father would kill them both for leaving.[24] She later stated, "When we left, my mother realized how strong she was on her own, and it made me strong. It took her leaving her home to be able to realize that."[22][24] She and her mother lived in the Hodges Ferry neighborhood of Portsmouth,[20] where Elliott graduated from Manor High School in 1990.[18] She later said that she occasionally speaks to her father, but has not forgiven him for abusing her mother.[22][24]
Personal life[edit]
Elliott said in 2008 that she wanted to start a family but was afraid of giving birth, stating, "I don't know if I can take that kind of pain. Maybe in the year 2020 you could just pop a baby out and it'd be fine. But right now I'd rather just adopt."[100]
In June 2011, 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.[101] She experienced severe symptoms from the condition and could not even hold a pen to write songs. After treatment, her symptoms stabilized.[102]
Legacy[edit]
Elliott has been referred to as the "Queen of Rap",[103][104] the "Queen of Hip Hop",[105] and the "First Lady of Hip Hop"[106] by several media outlets. Elliott's experimental concepts in her music videos changed the landscape of what a hip-hop video had as themes at the time.[107] Her catalogue of songs have included themes of feminism, gender equality, body positivity and sex positivity since the beginning of her career, being one of the first to center on these topics among hip-hop and R&B performers.[108] The Guardian and The Observer considered her America's first Black female music mogul, as she gained in 2001 total control over her image and music, and the opportunity to sign artists.[103][22] The Observer's Ted Kessler stated that, with her studio albums, she has "revolutionized the sound of R&B and hip-hop" and reintroduced the notion "of fun and fantasy" to urban Black music—a style that matched the "futuristic, much-copied new sound" of her 1997 debut album, Supa Dupa Fly.[22] Destiny's Child, Eve and Macy Gray have credited her for "clearing a path" in the American music industry towards "their own pop pre-eminence" as Black female R&B/hip-hop performers.[22] The Recording Academy and Evening Standard have called her a "hip hop icon".[109][110] The Economist considered that Elliott "is to rap what Prince was to R&B" due to their "impact upon the genre" and her ability to "weave in styles and strands from outside it."[111]
The New Yorker stated that Elliott became the first Black female rapper to reach the mainstream in Middle America.[112] An article from Vibe credits Elliott's debut album Supa Dupa Fly for "changing the rap game for women", noting the rapper's "refusal to be pigeonholed" with her image, and instead, embraced "the complexities inherent with Black womanhood", with the author commenting that female rappers tend to be placed into one of two categories: androgyny or hyper-sexualization.[113] The New York Times and The Bulletin have called her the "Queen of the Beats".[114][115] Jem Aswad of Variety commented that Elliott and longtime collaborator Timbaland "reshaped the sound of hip-hop", as they made songs "out of pings and bips and bloops (both vocal and electronic) that quickly became part of the foundation of virtually all that followed."[116] Similarly, Doreen St. Félix of The New Yorker wrote that her debut album "expanded the definition of rap" and "defined a new hip-hop aesthetic", with Elliott and Timbaland developing a grammar by "collecting extra-musical noises", "crafting" a new R&B sound, and incorporating a "singsong technique" in her flow. The author noted that, a generation later, the majority of rappers "are also vocalists".[117] For Los Angeles Times writer Gerrick D. Kennedy, Elliott "ushered in a new era of creatively ambitious music videos."[118] The aesthetic for the music video for "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" inspired several others released afterward.[112][119] Commercially, Missy Elliott led female hip hop album sales during the late 1990s and early 2000s.[52] Missy Elliott in addition to Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and The Clipse are considered to have an intricate part of establishing Virginia as one of the East Coast's strongholds in hip hop.[120] As of 2015, she has remained the best selling female rap album artist in the US.[121] ABC website editor Gab Burke expressed that 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."[122]
Elliott has influenced various musicians, both visually and vocally.[123] Her work has been cited as an inspiration by acts such as Cardi B,[124] Lil Wayne,[125] Lizzo,[126] Tyler, the Creator,[127] Solange Knowles,[128] Chloe Bailey,[129] M.I.A.,[130][131] Janelle Monáe,[132] Anderson .Paak,[133] Rapsody,[134] Ciara,[135] Bree Runway,[136] Doja Cat,[137] Ivy Queen,[138] Ari Lennox,[139] Tayla Parx,[140] Sean Bankhead,[141] ASAP Ferg,[142] Leikeli47,[143] Tierra Whack,[144][145] Noname,[146][147] Okenyo,[122] Little Simz,[148] Coda Conduct,[122] Dawn Richard,[149] Banks,[149] Rich the Kid,[150] Crystal Caines,[151] Coi Leray,[152] Lady Leshurr,[153] Stefflon Don,[154] Flo Milli,[155] Krept and Konan,[156] Rye Rye,[157] Le1f,[158] Qveen Herby[159] and Erica Banks[160]
Other ventures[edit]
In 2005, there were plans to make a biographical film about the life story of Elliott.[169] It was to be co-produced by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, and written by Diane Houston.[170] In mid-June 2007, Elliott said she was still working on the script with Houston in order "to come up with the right stuff 'cause I don't want it to be watered down. I want it to be raw and uncut the way my life was."[170] Initially, it seemed Timbaland would not be a part of the movie. When Missy 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".[171]
Philanthropy[edit]
In 2002, Elliott wrote a letter on behalf of PETA to the mayor of her hometown Portsmouth, Virginia, asking that all shelter animals be neutered/spayed before being adopted.[172] For the reality TV show The Road to Stardom, there was a contest for viewers to create a public service ad for the Break the Cycle fund.
In 2004, she joined forces with MAC Cosmetics to promote their "Viva Glam" campaign. In addition to the ad campaign, Elliott promoted the MAC Viva Glam V lipstick from which 100% of the sale goes to the MAC AIDS Fund.
In 2007, Elliott appeared on an ABC's Extreme Makeover and awarded four scholarships for a weight loss program to four underprivileged teens.
In August 2017, a 27-year-old Virginia man named Nathan Coflin began a Change.org petition that gained over 30,000 signatures in support of a statue to honor Elliott's philanthropic endeavors to be erected in her hometown of Portsmouth, Virginia.[173] On the petition's proposed site for this statue a Confederate Monument previously stood. This led to widespread media coverage in several national publications including The Washington Post,[174] HuffPost,[175] Newsweek[176] and Time Magazine.[177]
In October 2022, a portion of McLean Street in Portsmouth, Virginia was renamed "Missy Elliott Boulevard".[178]
