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Hip-hop history is full of forgotten influencers, small-time acts and regional legends who rarely get their due for helping push the genre forward.
It’s also rife with rappers who never get props during their careers, folks with careers that are critically and commercially loved, but will never manage to make an appearance in the G.O.A.T. conversation.
But I can only think of one rapper who has the misfortune of belonging to both of these groups: Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott. Let’s talk about the legacy of one of hip-hop’s strangest stars.
A Missy Primer
First off, we need to remind ourselves of how huge a star Missy Elliott was. A decade is enough time to forget her success, but Missy has sold 33 million records, wrote a large chunk of Aaliyah’s arguably best album, and won five Grammys out of 33 nominations from 1997 to 2005.
Of course, commercial success doesn’t mean quality. But what matters with Missy is that she didn’t change her style for those numbers, she brought rap radio to her own unique, lady-centric level.
She Don’t Want No One-Minute Man
When Beyonce stood in front of building-sized letters spelling out the word “Feminist,” you would have thought she invented female empowerment from the internet’s reaction to it.
Don’t get me wrong, Third Ward Trill’s power move was bold, but she’d be the first to admit she’s not the first woman pushing equality on the hip-hop/R&B charts.
The conversation surrounding powerful, feminist rap artists tends to begin and end with Lil’ Kim. While the Bad Boy starlet’s hypersexual and fierce songs no doubt left a lasting legacy, she wasn’t sticking her neck out alone.
Elliott’s entire career consists of club hits espousing body positivity, sexual satisfaction, and the fact that she can destroy any rapper, male or female.
Kim’s songs were excellent and necessary, but they largely centered around her body. Missy moved one step beyond that, realizing that her gender didn’t matter and spending a large part of her debut music video wearing a formless trash bag.
Missy wanted folks to know she wasn’t a great female MC, she was a great MC, period. By the time her 2001 album Miss E… So Addictive came out, she had videos full of men who were so in awe of her that they ate her spit.
The clarion call at the center of “Get Ur Freak On” brings me to my next point, arguably Missy’s most lasting contribution to rap.
Missy Brought The Weird
Kids whose first exposure to Missy Elliott was her Super Bowl performance earlier this year may have a hard time understanding how strange her music felt when she first appeared.
With its intense colors, dripping bassline and free associative rhymes, “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” might as well have dropped down from space when it landed in 1997. At its highest point on the Billboard charts, the Ann Peebles-sampling track shared space with bedroom-focused R&B from Dru Hill, gospel from Kirk Franklin, and a Biggie song, as well as a tribute that were all built around Donna Summer and The Police, respectively.
This oddball quality wasn’t a novelty, and Missy spent the next eight years refusing to assimilate into the mainstream rap sound. A full 14 years before Balkan horns took over the radio, Missy was introducing songs in Japanese, rapping over a tumbi and throwing it to Hindi-speaking old men.
There’s a reason that tracks like “Freak” and “Work It” still sound so fresh: The rest of pop-rap is just starting to catch up.
Missy’s Lasting Legacy
There’s no doubt that Missy pushed rap forward, allowing women to be a bit more themselves and everyone to be a bit more strange.
Do you think Young Thug’s gibberish-filled tracks aren’t influenced by a woman who was rapping backwards and in other languages on the radio when he was 9 years old?
Do you think “Run the World (Girls)” would have been as big without “We Run This” paving the way?
Most importantly, do you think Nicki Minaj — the single most visible and influential female rapper currently working — would exist without Missy throwing out vulgar, sexual and strange raps that never made her seem anything less than in charge?
The answer to all three is a resounding “no.” And when Missy comes up for a vote into the (eventual) Hip-Hop Hall of Fame, here’s hoping those artists are smart enough to recognize it.