April 10, 2024 • 28 mins
On this episode of our 500 Greatest Songs podcast, we dive into the unique chemistry Missy Elliot and Timbaland have had throughout their careers. In the Nineties, Missy and Timbaland were just a pair of kids from Virginia — but they ended up changing the sound of hip-hop and pop forever. The two geniuses would collaborate on production for their friends and eventually on Missy Elliott's own successful string of albums and major hits. The most inventive of them remains to be "Get Ur Freak On," the lead single off 2001's Miss E...So Addictive.
This week Brittany and Rob dig into everything that makes "Get Ur Freak On" so iconic: the experimental production that fuses dancehall with bhangra, Missy's inventive wordplay, the surprise samples and of course that inimitable creative chemistry she shares with Timbaland. The pair also celebrate the impact the two have had on music since they burst on the scene, whether it’s their reinvention of Aaliyah's career, the trippy, avant-garde music videos for Missy's own hits, or Timbaland's world-shifting touch on pop music in the aughts. Later, Sheffield has a conversation with the so addictive Miss E herself, delving into her early musical partnership with Timbaland, their creative process, and the making of her debut album 'Super Duper Fly.'
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Rolling Stones five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast
based on Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm Britney Spanis.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
And I'm Rob Sheffield and we are here to shed
light on the greatest songs ever made and discover what
makes them so great.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
So big one, big one this.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Week all time favorite.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Both of us and I mean, one of the best
songwriting production duos in all of music history.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Worked on this song. Today.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
We are going to talk about Missy Elliott's get Your
Freak on the I mean absolutely transcendent song that placed
four sixty six on the two thousand and four and
twenty ten lists and jumped all the way to number
eight on the twenty twenty one list. It's one of
three Missy songs on the list. Work It came in
at number fifty six, and the Rain Super Dupa Fly
(00:48):
came in at number four fifty three. And the song
was written and produced by Missy and Timbaland, one of
the again one of the greatest combinations, one of the
greatest duos in songwriting history, and they have had a
long running just collaborative partnership and friendship and just continue
to make really avant garde and experimental music, as Get
(01:08):
your Freak On is exemplary of absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I mean there's no way you would hear any five
second snippet of this song and not think two thoughts simultaneously.
This is Missy and Timbaland, and second, what planet is
this coming from? They always had such a completely innovative,
original sound that sounded like nothing else, even when everybody
(01:31):
was trying to imitate what they did a couple of
years earlier.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, it's a level of weirdness that literally only Missy
can get away with performing. You know, It's like Missy
can only do this so effectively and so perfectly where
she herself is i mean just completely always futuristic, always
kind of weigh hundreds of thousands of years ahead of
whatever's going on in pop music, and can get away
(01:54):
with I mean, this was her third album.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
This was Missy so addictive.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
The fact that it still sounds like this could be
you know, people would kill for this to be like
the first time that you ever heard them.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yes, and that this is just one song from one
album in one of the greatest runs in pop music history. Yeah,
Missy and Timbaland just always had that unique chemistry and
as soon as people around the world heard it, people
became obsessed. I mean, you don't forget when you heard
them for the first time. The song I voted for
(02:25):
on my list was The Rain Super Dupa Fly Yes,
which that was the beginning. That was their first hit
and they had so much further to go and so
much further to evolve. But really, I mean, whichever their
songs you pick, it's just an absolutely unique run.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, I mean, this song is just I mean, there's
so many different levels and layers of the parts that
make it so great and cool and eclectic. I mean
there's the bongra type of beat that's on there, and
there's someone speaking in Japanese and either end of the song,
and there's like a German kind of new age artist
sampled on it. You know, it's just like this very
like worldly song. They're able to encompass all this and
(03:03):
still make it so distinctly Missy. It doesn't sound like
Missy stepping into anything else, but what Missy does, like,
it's it's so purely her.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yes, And every time you think this song couldn't get
any weirder, it gets weirder.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
They just both keep throwing in like bizarre sonic things.
I really like the part where like Missy Hawks Aligi. Yeah,
and it's like who else, literally who else on the
planet would try this and make it rock so hard
and make it so undeniable.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And I think the thing that for both of them
that works so well and what I think, of course,
kind of keeps them sort of united and so with
such great respect for each other, but also to have
so much fun and so much freedom in.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
The studio together.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
It's just the fact they both love hip hop that
makes you dance, like they really have such an appreciation
for that above all else, Like it matters so much
to them to make kind of this like really classic
hip hop that's meant.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
To be in tribute to the great bee.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Boys and hip hop dancers of the previous eras that
inspired them so much as kids and inspired them so
much as as artists. And you can feel that in
everything that they have made together.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
It's really true and that they came from. Talk about
a place that you know, qualified as the edge of
nowhere is considered by the music world in the nineteen nineties,
but Portsmouth, Virginia, which even by Virginia standards is a
really isolated place. Yeah, and for them it was very
much like the John Lennon Paul McCartney story, that they're
(04:33):
from this town that is completely ignored by the rest
of the world, not just the music world, a very
isolated place that where they find each other and they
have a unique sonic chemistry from the very beginning, and
they have this formula and people around the world were like,
what is the Liverpool sound? What is it about the
Mercy River. It's like, no, it wasn't Liverpool, It's just
(04:55):
John and Paul found each other and created something, and
very much that way with Portsmouth and the Missy Timberland sound,
and considering how much great music each of them has
made individually and in collaboration with other artists, but always
something so beautiful about the way that they always saved
their best tricks for each other.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah, I mean they definitely they push each other so
much further, and they always push whoever they're working with
so much further, which is so excellent to see. Like
the way that, you know, thinking about their joint production
and work on Alia's music, you know, the fact what
they were able to kind of accomplish with Aliyah is
so I mean that sort of trio together is so
beautiful and wonderful and kind of you know, I wish
(05:36):
for you, which we had gotten like a million more
albums from them, because I think that was such a
great kind of combination of sort of this R and
B budding princess and like these kind of these two
absolutely avant garde producers and writers who were able to
see so much of what put so much potential that
she had.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Unbelievable that the collaboration between them was so unique and
so perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I remember when One in Million came out, and it's
weird because people thought that the Alias story had already
happened and was over. Everybody thought, well, it's great that
Aliah is making another album and starting over, And it
was so shocking for people to hear One in a Million.
Nobody knew who Missing Timberland were. They were just the
names and the credits, and it was such a striking
(06:18):
and other worldly sound.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, and there are individual kind of you know, Timbaland
working with Nelly Fortado.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
And justin Timberlake and kind of what.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
He was able to bring out of these two pop
stars and in this moment. I mean, we've talked about
Max Martin in a previous episode, and then this kind
of like polar opposite type of production for pop music
comes up and kind of like challenges but also pushes
a lot of that conversation forward. And thinking about just
kind of this like very very futuristic R and B
and kind of dance music and kind of spacey kind
(06:47):
of beats and melodies that he brought to both those
artists who were doing vastly different things prior to working
with him, is like pretty extraordinary. What he did, like
with all those albums, like thinking specifically with like Loose
Otherhado and feature Sex Love Sounds with Justin even though
of course he worked on Unjustified a bit too, but
kind of the.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Further they pushed was great.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
And of course with get Your Freak On of that
made already the two thousand and four list again a
song that people already just upon its release knew it
was great and ahead of the time, ahead of its time,
and you know, just kind of already a brilliant enough
song to even crack the list within gear or two
of it coming.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Out and being on there. Yes, what do you think
it was?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
About Get Your Freak On to immediately make the list
and then also jump up so high into the.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Top ten the way it did on the newest version.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I think it's come to stand for all the brilliant
stuff that they've done. Honestly, it's weird that in a
pull like this there's always going to be vote splitting
for somebody like Missy, who has so many songs, the
proportion of songs that are classics, like, it's weird that
there's not a lot of mid Missy songs. Yeah, and
especially when Get Your Freak one came out, people were
(07:57):
used to the idea that, Okay, it's summer, so that
means Missy's going to have a new record and it's
going to be the song of the summer. Yeah, because
that was the fourth summer in a row, when people
were just used to that. People just assumed that was
going to happen at that point. It's really weird to
even try to imagine what summers and pop music were
like before Missy and Timberland started making records. Because super
(08:18):
Dup a Fly was definitely Okay, this is not just
the song of the summer, this is how a summer
actually sounds. And this is how it's always going to
be from now on, and it's wild that forget your
freak on. That was one where people said, Okay, it's
going to happen. Let's see what they have this year
and get your freak on. Such a even by Missy's
(08:41):
previous standards, such an outlandish, outrageous, almost daring you to say, Okay,
you're going a little far this time. We really don't
need all this stuff in one song. And it's so excessive,
but it doesn't feel excessive. It's got a real minimal
aspect with just you know, that throb all the way through,
the bongera sound that it uses, which was so innovative.
This is before it really took off in two thousandspop.
(09:04):
But that Punjabi sound where there's the tombe hook that
and then the tabla rhythm and that for the most part,
those are the instruments you hear, and there's all these
crazy ideas and tricks and effects that they throw on
top of it, but that is the pulse of the
song all the way through, and so it feels really
(09:25):
minimal yet super expansive.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like the way that Missy
and Tim in particular very much like loop their beats
and samples into things. Is like it really gets under
your skin in the best way possible, Like it's in
such like specific and get your freak on thinking about
just like the way that they do the reverse part
and work it, which was my vote actually for the
list I had work on my ballot. You know, it's
(09:48):
just kind of is like that super addictive, kind of
perfect dancy thing that they really accomplish in it. That's
like so just like so far superior and so far advanced,
and what they did with that in particular.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, I remember when We Get Your preak On came
out in very early summer two thousand and one, and
I was writing about it in a Rolling Stone, and I
was bluntly saying, like, what did we do for fun
in the summer before these two came along? And it's
really wild the rain super Dupa Fly. That's a huge
sentimental fave for me. We can argue all day about
what their absolute peak moment of genius and inventiveness is,
(10:26):
but I was in Virginia at that time, and it
was wild that everybody I interviewed for the next few
years as soon as like I mentioned that I was
from Virginia. All they wanted to talk about was Missy
and Timbaland. I remember I was interviewing Massive Attack around
the time that their mezzanine cowp album came out. They're
classic from early ninety eight, and the guy's in Massive
(10:48):
Attack very wary with journalists, always very guarded. When I
mentioned that I was from Virginia, they had all these questions,
and they were asking me things like what did people
eat there, and like what's the weather? Like we had
all these specific questions because they were so obsessed with
the idea. Everybody around the world was obsessed with Portsmouth, Virginia. Yeah,
and it was really kind of incredible to have the
(11:09):
two most visionary artists in pop music come from the
same town. They find each other, and they create the
sound that completely radicalizes pop music.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's crazy how much you
can make a case for even I mean not even
just for the three messy songs that end up making
the list, but for really any Missy Sinkhole that like
even from even from so Addictive. I'm like one minute
mat it's such like a perfect song too, like such
a great just like again, like very weird kind of
like mid tempo rap song from them, Like it's just
(11:41):
really great.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I love that song so much.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I'm like, you can make a case for almost any
Missy Missy tim collaboration to kind of to be in
the top ten of this type of list, or to
even make the list at all. But I feel like
any of those three could have very much made the
top ten.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Of this list absolutely well. And you mentioned that Work
it is.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Your favorite, Yeah, I love Work.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I think it has some of my favorite Missy lines
on there. I mean, like the halle Berry poster line
is one that always comes to mind, the reverse part.
I mean, I think it's just like some of her
best lyricism in it, Like she always has such a
great flow, and she always has such a good, great
way of playing with words and sounds and like just
like saying kind of like kind of witty and like
(12:24):
kind of.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Ridiculous things and songs.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I feel like Work it is just like some of
her greatest bars that she's ever had. And I love
that so much of the most memorable lines.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Is under construction. Your favorite Missy album?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Honestly, No, I think it's probably it's probably stupid super Fly.
I think it's that one because I love socket to
me so much, and I do, I really do love
The Rain, And there's just like so much like young
hungriness in it that I or in that album that
I really love.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yeah, Yeah, and the Rain. It's it's a song that
you know, we've all heard a million times and it's
still so shocking. There's so much open space in it,
the way you hear that swamp kind of sound, you
hear frogs and crickets. It's funny because I think of
Under Construction as her greatest full on album. Yeah, and
(13:14):
yet super Dupi Flies probably the one. It's one of
the albums I've listened to most in my life in
terms of sheer quantity of listens. It's one that I've
just listened to front to back, over and over and
over again. I never hear it without being shocked and
surprised by stuff in it. Yeah, but Get your Freak
(13:34):
On is a song like that that you can hear
it thousands of times over the years and you still wonder,
how did this even happen?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
How does one even get here?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
You know, like creatively, and it's perfect, you know, it's
like no one else can can do that and kind
of set off set a new bar of like what
pop music can be, what hip hop music can be.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
It's funny. It's something that's such a weird. Factor of
where they came from, when they can came from, is
that hip hop was so focused on two cities all
through the nineties. There was New York and LA and
there was a real resistance, especially in New York but
also in LA to hip hop from anywhere else. And
(14:17):
so even like Outcast with songs like Elevator and everything,
they couldn't get any airplay in New York because that
was seen as a niche. You know, Southern stuff was
seen as a niche. So for Missy and Tim to
come out of a place that, even within the South
is a really isolated and overlooked place with a sound
that was so universal and almost anybody who heard it
(14:38):
got their minds blown. It really I think of as
that's what killed off the whole regional thing, the regional
biases that kept artists from Atlanta and Houston and other
places from being heard on that same universal level. And
it's really weird how much it sort of opened the
frontiers for pop music all over the board. It's a
(14:58):
all that whenever Missy goes back and makes new music,
it's always still brilliant. It's funny that she's never repeated
her old formulas, even when people would love that. Yeah,
you know, when she goes back to the studio, it's
not to do better versions of things she's done before
or different versions of things she's done before. So it's well,
(15:18):
even like the last ten years of being a Missy
fan have been such a trip.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, I mean, it feels also like everyone is very
much thinking about the ways to show greater appreciation for
the work that she's done, the work that her and
Timberland have done together. And I mean I think more
and more props will be given to Timberland as a
producer in the future, I hope, because I think there's
a lot of great pop production he's done that deserves
(15:43):
a lot of And also like having a protege like
Danger who worked on Blackout. I mean, that's like an
incredible thread that in pop music that we simply must
get into. But like, but I think, you know, I
think there's been a lot of you know, Missy finally
getting a video Vanguard at the VMA's which was well overdue.
I mean, she's someone who completely reinvented the wheel of
(16:06):
what a music video canon should be. And again not
afraid to get weird, not afraid to like, you know,
let just like that, get your freak on flag flat.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
You know, she's open to it.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Honestly, everything about Missy she's clearly someone who doesn't have
any driving need to be a celebrity. She when she
wants to work, it's always as an artist. But she
doesn't do you know, she's not a red carpet, She's
not sort of selling herself as a brand. She's got
musical ideas, and when she has moved to make music,
(16:38):
it's always unmistakably her. But it's wild that she just
decided kind of early on that she didn't want to
be a mainstream celebrity type. She wanted to be just
that weird artist at all times.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And you could feel so much kind of respect and
awe that so many legends pay Missy. I mean, thinking
about the way that people like Jant Jackson and Maria
Carrie love Missy Elliott and love her music and constantly
speak about her.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Just to pick an obvious rock example, but you can't
imagine Radiohead's trajectory without the inspiration that they took from
Missy and from Timberland, but that they go from you know,
okay computer to kid a and amnesiac and hail to
the thief, that whole evolution that they did. You know,
like they'd be the first to say that Missy was
(17:27):
a huge inspiration to them. It's really wild to see
what a worldwide for she was in terms of artists
who didn't necessarily sound like her, but they just wanted
to be as cool and as free and as radically
open musically as she was.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Yeah, and we're all better for it.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
And I feel we're going to keep hearing and seeing
that even more now that we have a bunch of
a bunch of kids who grew up on her making
music now and pop and wrapping all over.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
We're all still catching up with like where Missy was
twenty twenty five years and up next we have Missy Elliott.
Thank you so much. This is Rob from Rolling Stone
and thanks for talking today.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Rob.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
It is such an honor and such a thrill to
talk to. You're one of my all time heroes.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Oh, thank you, thank you, I thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
How did you and Timberland have this kind of music chemistry?
I mean, when did you two start making your music together.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Tim and I started making our music together when we
were in high school and he went to another high school.
I was at another high school and I met Magool,
which was tim rapping partner, and Magool introduced me. He said,
you know, I want you to meet my friend Tim.
And Tim at the time was a DJ. He wasn't
(18:50):
even a producer. We went to his house and he
would just he had like a little keyboard and he
would just play on it, like not even with producing
in mind. That's how you you know when God is
in effect and the lot the stars aligned because his
goal wasn't to be a producer at the time, and
(19:10):
so he would get on your keyboard and the cassio
used to have like a little sounds, animal sounds and stuff,
and I just remember thinking like, Wow, he's making this
sound hot with this little toy keyboard. And so he
would start he would do that, or because he was
a DJ, he would have like instrumental records and he
(19:32):
would play the instrumental and I just started like rapping
and singing, and then I just started going to his
house every other day, if not every day, until his
dad was like, look, I got to drive this bus
to work. His dad was like a long haul driver
or something, and we would be in there making so
much noise to the wee hours of the morning. He
(19:54):
would play instrumentals and then I would start writing, and
I was just like, you need to produce, like you
have something, and so he started doing beats. And you know,
back then, we didn't have the technology that we have now.
We used to record on a cassette tape and then
put another cassette in and bounce the vocals. It was
some weird way we used to do it. So by
(20:16):
the time you heard it, it sounded muffled, but you know,
because you didn't bounce these vocals from tape to tape.
So now it's it's sound muffled. But we would ride
around in a car and be grooving like, oh my god.
We thought it sound amazing, but it was a mess.
(20:37):
But it was enough to get people attention. Though, I
will say that amazing.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
And yet what you were doing then people are still
trying to catch up now, is what you were doing
two years ago.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
A lot of the tracks that we did were always
say hypnotic when I think get your freak on just
ad no, no, no, no, no, it is this hypnotic
is like, yeah, those records were very special, and people
always say we want to hear a record like and
they'll name something from back then. But what you have
(21:10):
to understand is that it was a time and a
space that we were in and those moments I don't
feel like can be recreated. Like I said, they were
my fun times and I don't have fun times anymore,
but I wouldn't trade it for nothing in the world.
Tim has always been a genius that he didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Some people like.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
To deal with people who go to school for this
very technical.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
About what they do.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
But sometimes it's great to be raw because you're going
off of this feels right instead of technically.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
What is right.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
And so it's funny to hear because we were, you know,
one of those ones that were doing the I don't
know how you can describe it, but it's like a
jump style rap the beats to where the catenance. You
hadn't heard the catenance like Kaki kat Ki cat cat
a kick do that multiple, you know, multiple hits back
(22:09):
to back like that, you know or hearing sound effects
and in the music that that hadn't been done and
before we even allowed the world when we came out
and I was just like, hey, Tim, like let's give them,
especially when we will work on the list stuff. I
was like, let's give let's do give the world what
we've been doing, because we've been doing this kind of
(22:31):
music for years. It's just that the world hadn't heard it.
And I'm just like, why sit on you know sounds
where I watched him make a snare out of a
ceiling fan and it's like, yo, let's give them this,
it's gonna sound different, and it did.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
They basically they had to beg you to make a
Missy record.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Yes, yes, I totally just wanted to have a label.
And that's how super Dupi fly cas because they said, okay,
well you will give you a label if you give
us one album.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And that went on and on and.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
On amazing And you said you made this album in
two weeks.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
In two weeks? Yes, yeah, how.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
How is that even possible?
Speaker 4 (23:14):
The way man Tom was able to make an album
in two weeks because, like I said, we before then
we were used to doing five six records a day, Basically,
we were doing what we were used to doing and
we didn't know anything was to come of it from that.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
We just okay, let's go in and knock this out.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
So we were just doing what we do five six
records and for you know it, it was, it was
done and amount of time.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
You made everybody else sound lazy. So thankful to you
for making this great album, an album that really just
reinvented music for the nineties. Nobody had heard anything like
this before.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
First of all, we didn't listen to the radio, and
we didn't watch TV, and which played a big part
of the sounds that we have because because we were
TV watches and at the time, we didn't hear, and
so by us not hearing, we didn't mimic what was out.
So when we came we didn't know what was hot
(24:18):
because we have been just listening to what we had
been doing. And so that made us unafraid and unapologetic
because we just didn't know that, okay, y'all doing something different.
Everybody else is doing this and you know, and making
us fear that hey, this what we're doing might be
too left. We didn't have that thought because we didn't
hear nor see.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Well, it's like you moved everybody else to the left
because you were so ahead of everybody else.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Oh man, yeah, we were on some futuristic stuff for sure, Yes, yes, yes, yes, amazing.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And all these years later it doesn't sound dated. So
much stuff from the nineties now it sounds dated. It
sounds good, but it sounds old, right.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Yeah. Man, It's like I said, it was special, and
I think it was special because it was coming from
a pure place. There was no expectation on that album.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
It was very.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Natural because it was what we were accustomed to doing anyway,
and because there wasn't an album before that that we
were trying to compete with. It came from a pure
place where it's innocent. It's like, hey, let's just do music.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
We love music.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
The second album is what became hard because the first
album was so much of a big success. Then it
was like, okay, what do we do now, Like how
we're gonna beat out these records? But the first album,
you're not comparing it to anything else.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
It was like nobody heard anything like it before. I mean,
I love that second album. I think that's a classic too.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
The funny thing with the second album that was the
hardest album for me, and I didn't I didn't appreciate
it at first. Now when I look back, I'm like,
this is probably one of the most artsy album because
it was so theatrical, three violins and horns and all
(26:09):
that stuff, totally different and on a kind of like
dark edged kind of sound, which was totally different from
the first album. But yeah, that second album was stressful
because of that first album, No mind You, I was
never supposed to.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Even get to a second out.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
But hey, you know, I thank God. I most definitely
don't want to be regretful, because I'm not. I am
so thankful. I always believe that if it happens for you,
that means it was supposed to. You know, God blessed
me with the talent and that's why it continued to
go on and on.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Well, I want to thank you for what you did
with that talent and what you did with your genius,
because that super Dupa Flyings Out an album that changed
my life and it changed the way music has sounded
ever since.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Thank you. I'm I'm always humbly grateful to you know,
to hear that, because I know somebody asked me earlier
this year. I can't remember they they I remember them
saying like, when did you feel like you had made
it or people had accepted your whole sound, look and video?
And I said, to be honest, just now, wow taking
(27:20):
a chance to well, I never.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Took the chance to think about it.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
We never took the time to think, oh, they get
it now, love me now like or any of those things.
And now it's probably last year, and this year is
now I feel like I made it.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Wow. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad you can hear the
world like accepting that now. Because boy, even at the
time when Super Dupe but Reply came out, people were
starved for something like you and for a performer like you.
I want to thank you for talking today about this album,
but I gotta thank you just for making the album.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
That was the completely amazing Missy Elliott being her genius self,
We are very blessed to have her as part of
our conversation about her genius work.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five hundred
Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling
Stone and iHeartMedia. Written hosted by me, Britney Spanos and
Rob Sheffield Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale and
Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon, with music supervision
by Eric Zeiler. Thanks for watching and thanks for listening.
Welcome to Rolling Stones five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast
based on Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm Britney Spanis.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
And I'm Rob Sheffield and we are here to shed
light on the greatest songs ever made and discover what
makes them so great.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
So big one, big one this.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Week all time favorite.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Both of us and I mean, one of the best
songwriting production duos in all of music history.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Worked on this song. Today.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
We are going to talk about Missy Elliott's get Your
Freak on the I mean absolutely transcendent song that placed
four sixty six on the two thousand and four and
twenty ten lists and jumped all the way to number
eight on the twenty twenty one list. It's one of
three Missy songs on the list. Work It came in
at number fifty six, and the Rain Super Dupa Fly
(00:48):
came in at number four fifty three. And the song
was written and produced by Missy and Timbaland, one of
the again one of the greatest combinations, one of the
greatest duos in songwriting history, and they have had a
long running just collaborative partnership and friendship and just continue
to make really avant garde and experimental music, as Get
(01:08):
your Freak On is exemplary of absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I mean there's no way you would hear any five
second snippet of this song and not think two thoughts simultaneously.
This is Missy and Timbaland, and second, what planet is
this coming from? They always had such a completely innovative,
original sound that sounded like nothing else, even when everybody
(01:31):
was trying to imitate what they did a couple of
years earlier.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, it's a level of weirdness that literally only Missy
can get away with performing. You know, It's like Missy
can only do this so effectively and so perfectly where
she herself is i mean just completely always futuristic, always
kind of weigh hundreds of thousands of years ahead of
whatever's going on in pop music, and can get away
(01:54):
with I mean, this was her third album.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
This was Missy so addictive.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
The fact that it still sounds like this could be
you know, people would kill for this to be like
the first time that you ever heard them.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yes, and that this is just one song from one
album in one of the greatest runs in pop music history. Yeah,
Missy and Timbaland just always had that unique chemistry and
as soon as people around the world heard it, people
became obsessed. I mean, you don't forget when you heard
them for the first time. The song I voted for
(02:25):
on my list was The Rain Super Dupa Fly Yes,
which that was the beginning. That was their first hit
and they had so much further to go and so
much further to evolve. But really, I mean, whichever their
songs you pick, it's just an absolutely unique run.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, I mean, this song is just I mean, there's
so many different levels and layers of the parts that
make it so great and cool and eclectic. I mean
there's the bongra type of beat that's on there, and
there's someone speaking in Japanese and either end of the song,
and there's like a German kind of new age artist
sampled on it. You know, it's just like this very
like worldly song. They're able to encompass all this and
(03:03):
still make it so distinctly Missy. It doesn't sound like
Missy stepping into anything else, but what Missy does, like,
it's it's so purely her.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yes, And every time you think this song couldn't get
any weirder, it gets weirder.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
They just both keep throwing in like bizarre sonic things.
I really like the part where like Missy Hawks Aligi. Yeah,
and it's like who else, literally who else on the
planet would try this and make it rock so hard
and make it so undeniable.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And I think the thing that for both of them
that works so well and what I think, of course,
kind of keeps them sort of united and so with
such great respect for each other, but also to have
so much fun and so much freedom in.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
The studio together.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
It's just the fact they both love hip hop that
makes you dance, like they really have such an appreciation
for that above all else, Like it matters so much
to them to make kind of this like really classic
hip hop that's meant.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
To be in tribute to the great bee.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Boys and hip hop dancers of the previous eras that
inspired them so much as kids and inspired them so
much as as artists. And you can feel that in
everything that they have made together.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
It's really true and that they came from. Talk about
a place that you know, qualified as the edge of
nowhere is considered by the music world in the nineteen nineties,
but Portsmouth, Virginia, which even by Virginia standards is a
really isolated place. Yeah, and for them it was very
much like the John Lennon Paul McCartney story, that they're
(04:33):
from this town that is completely ignored by the rest
of the world, not just the music world, a very
isolated place that where they find each other and they
have a unique sonic chemistry from the very beginning, and
they have this formula and people around the world were like,
what is the Liverpool sound? What is it about the
Mercy River. It's like, no, it wasn't Liverpool, It's just
(04:55):
John and Paul found each other and created something, and
very much that way with Portsmouth and the Missy Timberland sound,
and considering how much great music each of them has
made individually and in collaboration with other artists, but always
something so beautiful about the way that they always saved
their best tricks for each other.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah, I mean they definitely they push each other so
much further, and they always push whoever they're working with
so much further, which is so excellent to see. Like
the way that, you know, thinking about their joint production
and work on Alia's music, you know, the fact what
they were able to kind of accomplish with Aliyah is
so I mean that sort of trio together is so
beautiful and wonderful and kind of you know, I wish
(05:36):
for you, which we had gotten like a million more
albums from them, because I think that was such a
great kind of combination of sort of this R and
B budding princess and like these kind of these two
absolutely avant garde producers and writers who were able to
see so much of what put so much potential that
she had.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Unbelievable that the collaboration between them was so unique and
so perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I remember when One in Million came out, and it's
weird because people thought that the Alias story had already
happened and was over. Everybody thought, well, it's great that
Aliah is making another album and starting over, And it
was so shocking for people to hear One in a Million.
Nobody knew who Missing Timberland were. They were just the
names and the credits, and it was such a striking
(06:18):
and other worldly sound.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, and there are individual kind of you know, Timbaland
working with Nelly Fortado.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
And justin Timberlake and kind of what.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
He was able to bring out of these two pop
stars and in this moment. I mean, we've talked about
Max Martin in a previous episode, and then this kind
of like polar opposite type of production for pop music
comes up and kind of like challenges but also pushes
a lot of that conversation forward. And thinking about just
kind of this like very very futuristic R and B
and kind of dance music and kind of spacey kind
(06:47):
of beats and melodies that he brought to both those
artists who were doing vastly different things prior to working
with him, is like pretty extraordinary. What he did, like
with all those albums, like thinking specifically with like Loose
Otherhado and feature Sex Love Sounds with Justin even though
of course he worked on Unjustified a bit too, but
kind of the.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Further they pushed was great.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
And of course with get Your Freak On of that
made already the two thousand and four list again a
song that people already just upon its release knew it
was great and ahead of the time, ahead of its time,
and you know, just kind of already a brilliant enough
song to even crack the list within gear or two
of it coming.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Out and being on there. Yes, what do you think
it was?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
About Get Your Freak On to immediately make the list
and then also jump up so high into the.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Top ten the way it did on the newest version.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I think it's come to stand for all the brilliant
stuff that they've done. Honestly, it's weird that in a
pull like this there's always going to be vote splitting
for somebody like Missy, who has so many songs, the
proportion of songs that are classics, like, it's weird that
there's not a lot of mid Missy songs. Yeah, and
especially when Get Your Freak one came out, people were
(07:57):
used to the idea that, Okay, it's summer, so that
means Missy's going to have a new record and it's
going to be the song of the summer. Yeah, because
that was the fourth summer in a row, when people
were just used to that. People just assumed that was
going to happen at that point. It's really weird to
even try to imagine what summers and pop music were
like before Missy and Timberland started making records. Because super
(08:18):
Dup a Fly was definitely Okay, this is not just
the song of the summer, this is how a summer
actually sounds. And this is how it's always going to
be from now on, and it's wild that forget your
freak on. That was one where people said, Okay, it's
going to happen. Let's see what they have this year
and get your freak on. Such a even by Missy's
(08:41):
previous standards, such an outlandish, outrageous, almost daring you to say, Okay,
you're going a little far this time. We really don't
need all this stuff in one song. And it's so excessive,
but it doesn't feel excessive. It's got a real minimal
aspect with just you know, that throb all the way through,
the bongera sound that it uses, which was so innovative.
This is before it really took off in two thousandspop.
(09:04):
But that Punjabi sound where there's the tombe hook that
and then the tabla rhythm and that for the most part,
those are the instruments you hear, and there's all these
crazy ideas and tricks and effects that they throw on
top of it, but that is the pulse of the
song all the way through, and so it feels really
(09:25):
minimal yet super expansive.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like the way that Missy
and Tim in particular very much like loop their beats
and samples into things. Is like it really gets under
your skin in the best way possible, Like it's in
such like specific and get your freak on thinking about
just like the way that they do the reverse part
and work it, which was my vote actually for the
list I had work on my ballot. You know, it's
(09:48):
just kind of is like that super addictive, kind of
perfect dancy thing that they really accomplish in it. That's
like so just like so far superior and so far advanced,
and what they did with that in particular.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, I remember when We Get Your preak On came
out in very early summer two thousand and one, and
I was writing about it in a Rolling Stone, and I
was bluntly saying, like, what did we do for fun
in the summer before these two came along? And it's
really wild the rain super Dupa Fly. That's a huge
sentimental fave for me. We can argue all day about
what their absolute peak moment of genius and inventiveness is,
(10:26):
but I was in Virginia at that time, and it
was wild that everybody I interviewed for the next few
years as soon as like I mentioned that I was
from Virginia. All they wanted to talk about was Missy
and Timbaland. I remember I was interviewing Massive Attack around
the time that their mezzanine cowp album came out. They're
classic from early ninety eight, and the guy's in Massive
(10:48):
Attack very wary with journalists, always very guarded. When I
mentioned that I was from Virginia, they had all these questions,
and they were asking me things like what did people
eat there, and like what's the weather? Like we had
all these specific questions because they were so obsessed with
the idea. Everybody around the world was obsessed with Portsmouth, Virginia. Yeah,
and it was really kind of incredible to have the
(11:09):
two most visionary artists in pop music come from the
same town. They find each other, and they create the
sound that completely radicalizes pop music.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's crazy how much you
can make a case for even I mean not even
just for the three messy songs that end up making
the list, but for really any Missy Sinkhole that like
even from even from so Addictive. I'm like one minute
mat it's such like a perfect song too, like such
a great just like again, like very weird kind of
like mid tempo rap song from them, Like it's just
(11:41):
really great.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I love that song so much.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I'm like, you can make a case for almost any
Missy Missy tim collaboration to kind of to be in
the top ten of this type of list, or to
even make the list at all. But I feel like
any of those three could have very much made the
top ten.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Of this list absolutely well. And you mentioned that Work
it is.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Your favorite, Yeah, I love Work.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I think it has some of my favorite Missy lines
on there. I mean, like the halle Berry poster line
is one that always comes to mind, the reverse part.
I mean, I think it's just like some of her
best lyricism in it, Like she always has such a
great flow, and she always has such a good, great
way of playing with words and sounds and like just
like saying kind of like kind of witty and like
(12:24):
kind of.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Ridiculous things and songs.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I feel like Work it is just like some of
her greatest bars that she's ever had. And I love
that so much of the most memorable lines.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Is under construction. Your favorite Missy album?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Honestly, No, I think it's probably it's probably stupid super Fly.
I think it's that one because I love socket to
me so much, and I do, I really do love
The Rain, And there's just like so much like young
hungriness in it that I or in that album that
I really love.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yeah, Yeah, and the Rain. It's it's a song that
you know, we've all heard a million times and it's
still so shocking. There's so much open space in it,
the way you hear that swamp kind of sound, you
hear frogs and crickets. It's funny because I think of
Under Construction as her greatest full on album. Yeah, and
(13:14):
yet super Dupi Flies probably the one. It's one of
the albums I've listened to most in my life in
terms of sheer quantity of listens. It's one that I've
just listened to front to back, over and over and
over again. I never hear it without being shocked and
surprised by stuff in it. Yeah, but Get your Freak
(13:34):
On is a song like that that you can hear
it thousands of times over the years and you still wonder,
how did this even happen?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
How does one even get here?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
You know, like creatively, and it's perfect, you know, it's
like no one else can can do that and kind
of set off set a new bar of like what
pop music can be, what hip hop music can be.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
It's funny. It's something that's such a weird. Factor of
where they came from, when they can came from, is
that hip hop was so focused on two cities all
through the nineties. There was New York and LA and
there was a real resistance, especially in New York but
also in LA to hip hop from anywhere else. And
(14:17):
so even like Outcast with songs like Elevator and everything,
they couldn't get any airplay in New York because that
was seen as a niche. You know, Southern stuff was
seen as a niche. So for Missy and Tim to
come out of a place that, even within the South
is a really isolated and overlooked place with a sound
that was so universal and almost anybody who heard it
(14:38):
got their minds blown. It really I think of as
that's what killed off the whole regional thing, the regional
biases that kept artists from Atlanta and Houston and other
places from being heard on that same universal level. And
it's really weird how much it sort of opened the
frontiers for pop music all over the board. It's a
(14:58):
all that whenever Missy goes back and makes new music,
it's always still brilliant. It's funny that she's never repeated
her old formulas, even when people would love that. Yeah,
you know, when she goes back to the studio, it's
not to do better versions of things she's done before
or different versions of things she's done before. So it's well,
(15:18):
even like the last ten years of being a Missy
fan have been such a trip.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, I mean, it feels also like everyone is very
much thinking about the ways to show greater appreciation for
the work that she's done, the work that her and
Timberland have done together. And I mean I think more
and more props will be given to Timberland as a
producer in the future, I hope, because I think there's
a lot of great pop production he's done that deserves
(15:43):
a lot of And also like having a protege like
Danger who worked on Blackout. I mean, that's like an
incredible thread that in pop music that we simply must
get into. But like, but I think, you know, I
think there's been a lot of you know, Missy finally
getting a video Vanguard at the VMA's which was well overdue.
I mean, she's someone who completely reinvented the wheel of
(16:06):
what a music video canon should be. And again not
afraid to get weird, not afraid to like, you know,
let just like that, get your freak on flag flat.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
You know, she's open to it.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Honestly, everything about Missy she's clearly someone who doesn't have
any driving need to be a celebrity. She when she
wants to work, it's always as an artist. But she
doesn't do you know, she's not a red carpet, She's
not sort of selling herself as a brand. She's got
musical ideas, and when she has moved to make music,
(16:38):
it's always unmistakably her. But it's wild that she just
decided kind of early on that she didn't want to
be a mainstream celebrity type. She wanted to be just
that weird artist at all times.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And you could feel so much kind of respect and
awe that so many legends pay Missy. I mean, thinking
about the way that people like Jant Jackson and Maria
Carrie love Missy Elliott and love her music and constantly
speak about her.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Just to pick an obvious rock example, but you can't
imagine Radiohead's trajectory without the inspiration that they took from
Missy and from Timberland, but that they go from you know,
okay computer to kid a and amnesiac and hail to
the thief, that whole evolution that they did. You know,
like they'd be the first to say that Missy was
(17:27):
a huge inspiration to them. It's really wild to see
what a worldwide for she was in terms of artists
who didn't necessarily sound like her, but they just wanted
to be as cool and as free and as radically
open musically as she was.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Yeah, and we're all better for it.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
And I feel we're going to keep hearing and seeing
that even more now that we have a bunch of
a bunch of kids who grew up on her making
music now and pop and wrapping all over.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
We're all still catching up with like where Missy was
twenty twenty five years and up next we have Missy Elliott.
Thank you so much. This is Rob from Rolling Stone
and thanks for talking today.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Rob.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
It is such an honor and such a thrill to
talk to. You're one of my all time heroes.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Oh, thank you, thank you, I thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
How did you and Timberland have this kind of music chemistry?
I mean, when did you two start making your music together.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Tim and I started making our music together when we
were in high school and he went to another high school.
I was at another high school and I met Magool,
which was tim rapping partner, and Magool introduced me. He said,
you know, I want you to meet my friend Tim.
And Tim at the time was a DJ. He wasn't
(18:50):
even a producer. We went to his house and he
would just he had like a little keyboard and he
would just play on it, like not even with producing
in mind. That's how you you know when God is
in effect and the lot the stars aligned because his
goal wasn't to be a producer at the time, and
(19:10):
so he would get on your keyboard and the cassio
used to have like a little sounds, animal sounds and stuff,
and I just remember thinking like, Wow, he's making this
sound hot with this little toy keyboard. And so he
would start he would do that, or because he was
a DJ, he would have like instrumental records and he
(19:32):
would play the instrumental and I just started like rapping
and singing, and then I just started going to his
house every other day, if not every day, until his
dad was like, look, I got to drive this bus
to work. His dad was like a long haul driver
or something, and we would be in there making so
much noise to the wee hours of the morning. He
(19:54):
would play instrumentals and then I would start writing, and
I was just like, you need to produce, like you
have something, and so he started doing beats. And you know,
back then, we didn't have the technology that we have now.
We used to record on a cassette tape and then
put another cassette in and bounce the vocals. It was
some weird way we used to do it. So by
(20:16):
the time you heard it, it sounded muffled, but you know,
because you didn't bounce these vocals from tape to tape.
So now it's it's sound muffled. But we would ride
around in a car and be grooving like, oh my god.
We thought it sound amazing, but it was a mess.
(20:37):
But it was enough to get people attention. Though, I
will say that amazing.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
And yet what you were doing then people are still
trying to catch up now, is what you were doing
two years ago.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
A lot of the tracks that we did were always
say hypnotic when I think get your freak on just
ad no, no, no, no, no, it is this hypnotic
is like, yeah, those records were very special, and people
always say we want to hear a record like and
they'll name something from back then. But what you have
(21:10):
to understand is that it was a time and a
space that we were in and those moments I don't
feel like can be recreated. Like I said, they were
my fun times and I don't have fun times anymore,
but I wouldn't trade it for nothing in the world.
Tim has always been a genius that he didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Some people like.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
To deal with people who go to school for this
very technical.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
About what they do.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
But sometimes it's great to be raw because you're going
off of this feels right instead of technically.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
What is right.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
And so it's funny to hear because we were, you know,
one of those ones that were doing the I don't
know how you can describe it, but it's like a
jump style rap the beats to where the catenance. You
hadn't heard the catenance like Kaki kat Ki cat cat
a kick do that multiple, you know, multiple hits back
(22:09):
to back like that, you know or hearing sound effects
and in the music that that hadn't been done and
before we even allowed the world when we came out
and I was just like, hey, Tim, like let's give them,
especially when we will work on the list stuff. I
was like, let's give let's do give the world what
we've been doing, because we've been doing this kind of
(22:31):
music for years. It's just that the world hadn't heard it.
And I'm just like, why sit on you know sounds
where I watched him make a snare out of a
ceiling fan and it's like, yo, let's give them this,
it's gonna sound different, and it did.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
They basically they had to beg you to make a
Missy record.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Yes, yes, I totally just wanted to have a label.
And that's how super Dupi fly cas because they said, okay,
well you will give you a label if you give
us one album.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And that went on and on and.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
On amazing And you said you made this album in
two weeks.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
In two weeks? Yes, yeah, how.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
How is that even possible?
Speaker 4 (23:14):
The way man Tom was able to make an album
in two weeks because, like I said, we before then
we were used to doing five six records a day, Basically,
we were doing what we were used to doing and
we didn't know anything was to come of it from that.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
We just okay, let's go in and knock this out.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
So we were just doing what we do five six
records and for you know it, it was, it was
done and amount of time.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
You made everybody else sound lazy. So thankful to you
for making this great album, an album that really just
reinvented music for the nineties. Nobody had heard anything like
this before.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
First of all, we didn't listen to the radio, and
we didn't watch TV, and which played a big part
of the sounds that we have because because we were
TV watches and at the time, we didn't hear, and
so by us not hearing, we didn't mimic what was out.
So when we came we didn't know what was hot
(24:18):
because we have been just listening to what we had
been doing. And so that made us unafraid and unapologetic
because we just didn't know that, okay, y'all doing something different.
Everybody else is doing this and you know, and making
us fear that hey, this what we're doing might be
too left. We didn't have that thought because we didn't
hear nor see.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Well, it's like you moved everybody else to the left
because you were so ahead of everybody else.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Oh man, yeah, we were on some futuristic stuff for sure, Yes, yes, yes, yes, amazing.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And all these years later it doesn't sound dated. So
much stuff from the nineties now it sounds dated. It
sounds good, but it sounds old, right.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Yeah. Man, It's like I said, it was special, and
I think it was special because it was coming from
a pure place. There was no expectation on that album.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
It was very.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Natural because it was what we were accustomed to doing anyway,
and because there wasn't an album before that that we
were trying to compete with. It came from a pure
place where it's innocent. It's like, hey, let's just do music.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
We love music.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
The second album is what became hard because the first
album was so much of a big success. Then it
was like, okay, what do we do now, Like how
we're gonna beat out these records? But the first album,
you're not comparing it to anything else.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
It was like nobody heard anything like it before. I mean,
I love that second album. I think that's a classic too.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
The funny thing with the second album that was the
hardest album for me, and I didn't I didn't appreciate
it at first. Now when I look back, I'm like,
this is probably one of the most artsy album because
it was so theatrical, three violins and horns and all
(26:09):
that stuff, totally different and on a kind of like
dark edged kind of sound, which was totally different from
the first album. But yeah, that second album was stressful
because of that first album, No mind You, I was
never supposed to.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Even get to a second out.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
But hey, you know, I thank God. I most definitely
don't want to be regretful, because I'm not. I am
so thankful. I always believe that if it happens for you,
that means it was supposed to. You know, God blessed
me with the talent and that's why it continued to
go on and on.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Well, I want to thank you for what you did
with that talent and what you did with your genius,
because that super Dupa Flyings Out an album that changed
my life and it changed the way music has sounded
ever since.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Thank you. I'm I'm always humbly grateful to you know,
to hear that, because I know somebody asked me earlier
this year. I can't remember they they I remember them
saying like, when did you feel like you had made
it or people had accepted your whole sound, look and video?
And I said, to be honest, just now, wow taking
(27:20):
a chance to well, I never.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Took the chance to think about it.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
We never took the time to think, oh, they get
it now, love me now like or any of those things.
And now it's probably last year, and this year is
now I feel like I made it.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Wow. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad you can hear the
world like accepting that now. Because boy, even at the
time when Super Dupe but Reply came out, people were
starved for something like you and for a performer like you.
I want to thank you for talking today about this album,
but I gotta thank you just for making the album.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
That was the completely amazing Missy Elliott being her genius self,
We are very blessed to have her as part of
our conversation about her genius work.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five hundred
Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling
Stone and iHeartMedia. Written hosted by me, Britney Spanos and
Rob Sheffield Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale and
Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon, with music supervision
by Eric Zeiler. Thanks for watching and thanks for listening.
Hosts And Creators
Brittany Spanos
Rob Sheffield
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