MISSY ELLIOT
By Odette Flemming

Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott keeps the music industry guessing, never quite sure what death defying lyrical feat she’s about to pull off next. Her innate love of all music is only a small part of the formula that allows her to create a dizzying arsenal of hit after hit after hit. It’s her love for the people that compels her to draw inspiration from the glory days of rap music. As if driven by a higher calling, she builds a musical bridge for today’s hip hop fans every time she scores a hit. “I just like to make fun music. I tried to take it back to the old school where it was just about battling, just about whether you had skills or not.”

Missy first knocked us over with her 1997 release, Supa Dupa Fly. Here was this loud, large, and likeable sista, bringing the noise in a man’s game without baring it all or acting like a boy-toy. Not since the days of Queen Latifah, MC Lyte and Monie Love had this been seen. Missy was determined. She hit the ground running as one of the genre’s most unique female video personalities of the late 1990’s. She showed herself to be serious about lightening the mood of rap music and taking her audience on a journey away from the violence of the day. In her first video, “Sock It 2 Me”, her eccentric costumes and funkafied use of the fish eye lens had us looking at her sideways and upside down as she floated through the frame in an air-filled suit. :::Read Full Story:::