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Missy Elliott (born Melissa Arnette Elliott
on July 1, 1971 in Portsmouth, Virginia) is an African American singer,
rapper, songwriter, and record producer. Formerly known as Missy
"Misdemeanor" Elliott, Elliott dropped the "Misdemeanor" from her stage
name in 2003, and now simply goes by "Missy Elliott".
Elliott is one of the first female hip hop
superstars, known for a long series of hits including "The Rain (Supa
Dupa Fly)", "She's a Bitch", "Get Ur Freak On" and "Work It". In
addition she has received recognition as one of the most successful
songwriters of the modern music era, having crafted a number of hit
records for artists such as Aaliyah, 702, Total, Nicole Wray and Tweet,
often with production-partner and childhood friend Timbaland.
* * * *
Biography
Early years
In the late-1980s, Elliott, LaShawn
Shellman, Chonita Coleman and Radiah Scott formed an R&B group called
Sista, for which Elliott served as a singer and songwriter. She
recruited her neighborhood friend Timothy "DJ Timmy Tim" Mosley as the
group's producer and began making demo tracks. In 1991, Sista caught the
attention of Jodeci member/producer DeVante Swing by performing Jodeci
songs acapella for him backstage after one of his group's concerts. In
short order, Sista moved to New York City, now signed to Elektra Records
through DeVante's Swing Mob imprint. Elliott took along with her Mosley,
whom DeVante re-christened Timbaland, and their friend Melvin "Magoo"
Barcliff.
All 20-plus members of the Swing Mob, among
them future stars such as Ginuwine, Playa, and Tweet, all lived in a
single two-story house in New York and were often at work on material
both for Jodeci and for their own projects. Elliott contributed
songwriting duties, both credited and uncredited, to the final two
Jodeci albums: 1993's Diary of a Mad Band and 1995's The Show, The After
Party, The Hotel. Timbaland and DeVante produced a Sista LP, 4 All the
Sistas Around the World, which was completed in 1994 but was shelved and
never released. By 1995, Swing Mob had folded and many of its members
dispersed; Elliott, Timbaland, Magoo, Ginuwine, and Playa remained
together, and would collaborate on each others' records for the rest of
the decade. 24.191.235.243
Elliott/Mosley songwriting/production team
After leaving Swing Mob, Elliott and
Timbaland began working together as an independent
songwriting/production team, and the two of them crafted hit singles for
a number of artists between 1995 to 1997. Among these acts were SWV
("Can We?") and 702 ("Steelo" and its remix), but the most notable of
them was Aaliyah. Elliott and Timbaland wrote and produced nine tracks
for Aaliyah's second album, One in a Million (1996), among them the hit
singles "If Your Girl Only Knew", "One in a Million", "Hot like Fire",
and "4 Page Letter". Elliott also contributed background vocals and/or
guest raps to nearly all of the tracks she and Timbaland worked on. One
in a Million went double-platinum and made stars out of the production
duo. Elliott and Timbaland continued to work together for other artists,
later creating hits for artists such as Total ("What About Us", 1997),
Nicole Wray ("Make It Hot", 1998), and Destiny's Child ("Get on the
Bus", 1998), as well as one final hit for Aaliyah, "I Care 4 U", before
her 2001 death.
Solo career
As a solo rapper, Elliott began her career
as a featured vocalist on MC Lyte's 1996 single "Cold Rock a Party",
which was produced by Sean "Puffy" Combs; Combs had hoped to sign
Elliott to Bad Boy Records. She instead signed a deal with Elektra
Records in 1996 to create her own imprint, Goldmind, for which she would
record as a solo artist. Timbaland was again recruited as her production
partner, a role he would hold for every Elliott solo release.
Early
success
Her debut album, released in mid-1997, was
Supa Dupa Fly, which included "Da Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)", a blockbuster
hit that established Elliott as a major force in popular music. Other
singles included "Beep Me 911," which featured 702, Timbaland, and Magoo;
"Hit 'Em wit da Hee," featuring rapper Mocha and Timbaland; and "Sock It
2 Me," a moderate hit which featured rhymes from Da Brat and a cameos by
her and Lil Kim in the Mega Man-inspired music video. The critical
acceptance of Supa Dupa Fly was mixed, though generally positive; many
critics commented that the album tracks, some of which sampled Elliott/
Mosley hits such as "Can We" and "One in a Million", were far inferior
to the singles. 1997 also saw Elliott perform on Lil Kim's girl-power
anthem, a hit remix of her song, "Not Tonite". The song's remix also
featured Da Brat, Angie Martinez and Left Eye, in addition to Kim and
Elliott; the five women performed it live at the 1997 MTV Video Music
Awards show.
In 1998, Elliott continued her successful
music career by writing and producing Total's single "Trippin'", as well
as working with several others in the hip-hop and R&B communities. The
same year, Elliott produced and contributed background vocals and some
rhymes to former Spice Girl Mel B's, debut single, "I Want You Back".
Elliott's second album was just as
successful as the first. Da Real World (1999, see 1999 in music)
included the singles "All N My Grill," a collaboration with Nicole Wray
and Big Boi (from OutKast), "Hot Boyz;" and "She's a Bitch".
Later
success
So
Addictive
Elliott next released Miss E... So
Addictive in 2001 (see 2001 in music). That album produced the massive
pop and urban hits "One Minute Man," featuring Ludacris and Trina, and
"Get Ur Freak On", as well as the international club hit "4 My People"
and the less commercially-successful single "Take Away," which featured
soulful melodies from Ginuwine and a then-unknown Tweet, who was
Elliott's most recent protege and labelmate at the time.
For "Get Ur Freak On", an usual remix was
released to radio in addition to the original version of the song. The
remix combined scat-singing from Nelly Furtado with Elliott's original
rapping. The remix performed just as successfully as the original and
was the version which was heard both in the Tomb Raider movie that year
and on its soundtrack.
The double music video for "Take Away/4 My
People" was released in the fall of 2001, shortly after the 9-11
terrorist attacks and the tragic death of Elliott's good friend Aaliyah.
The "Take Away" part of the video, which was its majority, contained
images of and words about Aaliyah, and the slow ballad acted as a
tribute to her memory. The remainder of the video, the more upbeat "4 My
People", contained scenes of people dancing happily in front of American
flags and Elliott dressed in red, white and blue. Though "Take Away"
flopped at radio, "4 My People" went on to become an American and
European club hit due to a popular techno Basement Jaxx remix in 2002.
Tweet's appearance on Elliott's "Take Away"
as well as her cameo at Elliott's house on Cribs helped to create a buzz
about the new R&B singer. Tweet's own debut single, "Oops (Oh My)", was
written by Elliott and released through Goldmind in February 2002. The
single was a top ten hit, thanks partially to Elliott's songwriting and
guest rap, and to Timbaland's unusual production on the track. Tweet and
Elliott's numerous collaboations and public appearances together during
this time also began to fuel media rumors that the two were having a
secret lesbian tryst, one of many media rumors about Elliott that she
herself would address in her subsequent work.
Under
Construction
Elliott's fourth album, 2002's Under
Construction (see 2002 in music), included the singles "Work It",
arguably Elliott's biggest hit to date, and the successful duet with
Ludacris, "Gossip Folks". In the latter, Elliott let her critics know
what she thought of recent media rumors about her, including her
amazingly rapid weight loss that had taken place during 2002 and her
alleged affairs with Timbaland, Tweet, and Trina. As the "Work It" video
had done during 2002, "Gossip Folks" became one of the most-played music
videos on MTV, MTV2, MTV Jams, and BET in 2003. Both videos were also
incredibly successful relative to other rap videos on both VH1 and VH1
Soul, which tend to play Hot AC videos and R&B videos respectively.
"Gossip Folks" received significantly less attention than "Work It" at
urban radio, but was embraced by the dance community, as well as the
mainstream, due to a Fatboy Slim remix. The album's third single,
"Pussycat", failed to make a strong impact on any chart, quickly peaking
at a dismal 77 on the Hot 100 and falling off the chart even faster.
However, the song's title did cause considerable controversy so that
Billboard was forced to list the song in its charts as "P****cat".
Under Construction also included a track
called "Back In The Day", a nostalgic ode to old school hip hop music
and fashion that featured guest vocals from Jay-Z and Tweet.
In the summer of 2003, Elliott was the
featured rapper on Timbaland & Magoo's long-awaited return single, "Cop
That Disc"; the song was a modest hit at urban radio. Elliott's singles,
"Pass The Dutch" and "I'm Really Hot", from her fifth album, This Is Not
A Test! (released November 2003), both rose the urban charts. However,
both were massive flops at pop radio in comparison to many of her
previous efforts. Also in 2003, Elliott was featured on Wyclef Jean's
"Party To Damascus" and Ghostface Killah's "Tush, Tush, Tush" singles,
the later of which became a minor 2004 dance hit, and had a pivotal role
in the motion picture Honey, starring Jessica Alba. The Gap approached
Elliot later in the year to co-star in a commercial with Madonna, which
received much media attention. Elliot furthered her relationship with
the Material Girl by remixing her songs "American Life" and "Hollywood"
and performing with her at the infamous MTV Video Music Awards show in
which Britney Spears and Madonna liplocked.
Recent
career
Over a decade after she first began
offering songwriting and production services, Missy Elliott is still as
widely recognized and respected by her peers, mainstream and
underground, as ever: Most recently, Elliott has provided production
work, with Timbaland, to Ciara and was a featured rapper on Ciara's
second single, a Jazze Pha production, "1, 2 Step". Her sixth solo
album, The Cookbook was released in July 2005 and debuted at #2 on the
US charts. Its first single, "Lose Control", which features Ciara and
Fatman Scoop, became a Top 10 hit in the early summer (peaking at #4 on
the Billboard Hot 100), and the other album tracks feature guest
appearances from Mike Jones, Fantasia Barrino, M.I.A, Slick Rick, Mary
J. Blige, and Pharrell Williams. The video for Lose Control won Missy 3
MTV VMA awards in 2005.
Trivia
Her 2002 album Under Construction is her
best selling album to date; selling 2.1 million copies in the USA.
"Work It" spent ten consecutive weeks at
number two on the Hot 100. The song is tied with Foreigner's 1981 hit
"Waiting For a Girl Like You" as the longest-running number two single
that did not reach number one.
Her fifth album This Is Not a Test! was
released in Nov of 2003 and debuted at No. 13 in The Billboard 200 Chart
selling 144,000 copies in its first week of release; the album has only
sold 690,000 to date in the USA.
In Jul of 2005 she released her sixth album
The Cookbook which came in at No. 2 on The Billboard 200 Chart selling
176,000 copies in the first week of release.
The first single of The Cookbook, "Lose
Control" features Ciara and Fat Man Scoop and has peaked at No. 4 on The
Billboard Hot 100 Chart.
Discography
Albums
Billboard 200 peaks and certifications
indicated.
1997: Supa Dupa Fly (#3 US, Platinum)
1999: Da Real World (#10 US, Platinum)
2001: Miss E...So Addictive (#2 US,
Platinum)
2002: Under Construction (#3 US, 2x
Platinum)
2003: This Is Not A Test! (#13 US,
Platinum)
2005: The Cookbook (#2 US)
* * * *
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Date Article Copied:
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