Episode 65: Missy Elliott's "Supa Dupa Fly"

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Today we're talking aboutSuper Dupa Fly by Missy Elliot.
Here's a way to begin a sentencethat I don't usually go with.
I think Queen Latifah said it best.
That's the part, but she did.

She said, quote (00:13):
"You feel free?
You wanna try some wild shit Thank Missy,because you can trust me: nothing sounded
the same after Missy came on the scene.
Nothing.
Everything changed.
The bassline changed, the pockets changed.
The cadence, the writing... and that'sbecause Missy has always been a futurist.

(00:33):
Somebody who's looking ahead."
And considering that quote came fromthe introductory speech for Missy
Elliott being the first female rapperin the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I think we are already drawing apretty clear picture of why, talking
about Missy Elliott is well overdueand why we're going to make damn sure

(00:57):
that you've listened to this record.
If you haven't very recently, I'mpretty stoked to talk about it.
I am too.
I have always slotted away Missy as.
capital-I important.
I've always been a Missy fan sincethe rain, which you know, I know

(01:18):
we're going to talk about at length.
I had the feeling that I saw from somany articles and interviews and stuff
that people clearly experienced ofa sea change moment when that video
came out named by Rolling Stone, thenumber-one hip-hop video of all time.
But there are things that I didn'treally consider about how to

(01:41):
situate Missy in the conversationin particular, you used the word
futurist from the Queen Latifah quote.
I saw the word avant garde in somebodywho cited her as a major influence.
And thinking about Missy interms of avant garde, it's like,
of course she is by definition.
But I reserve that for people likeBjörk and I just don't think about

(02:10):
hip hop in terms of avant-gardegenerally, which is on me.
shamefully as a huge hip-hopfan, but like of course it is.
not since jazz, has there been a formthat is avant garde, by definition,
like hip hop, she altered the d, shemutated the DNA of hip-hop and American
popular culture immutably forever.

(02:35):
I think it goes beyond like, I think wehave to expand our definition beyond.
She is highly influential in popularculture to there is something so encoded
and cosmic in her DNA that we have totake a step back and just be like, whoa.
I feel a little X-Files-y when I think andtalk about Missy now after, after study.

(02:57):
Like she is a wholly singular, cameto us, fully baked alien phenomenon.
Living in the year 3000 and not evenreally trying that hard to bring it
to us just sort of invites us in.
I'll be up here on the spaceship.
come hang out and have a beer.

(03:19):
I think for fellow.
Elder ish millennials.
One reason it's important to revisitthis conversation and dissect the
capital I important thing you werementioning is 'cause this record, for
instance, this came out July 15th, 1997.
Speaking just for myself here, I was11 entire years old at that point.

(03:42):
And so while for real, miss e Elliotwas probably my earliest and most
liked female hip hop artist period,I could not possibly have any of
the context of what was leading intothe moment of this record happening.
again, as an 11-year-old, I was not yetdeeply seeped into the, hip hop lore.

(04:10):
and coastal wars, believe it or not,11-year-old me was slightly more
concerned with baseball and the bike thatI had just convinced my parents to buy
from Walmart, which I broke promptly.
And it is all a very visceral memory andnone of it includes me being like, Hey
mom, I'm pretty stoked about this record.

(04:32):
Biggie left a pretty huge gap on thescene and I'm prepared to help coordinate.
Potentially the new era of hip hop.
So I'm trying to give myself abreak 'cause I just like, without
irony or intention, really likedMissy Elliot have the entire time.
I've never felt some reason to go back andfigure out why, because I was just right.

(04:58):
rules for all the reasons you mentioned.
Like, and we'll talk about a ton moreof 'em, but like, you get it right.
I haven't really gone back, Ihaven't really thought about it.
I love a bunch of these songs.
You know, I was even morefamiliar with the records that
came out a little bit after this.
But being able to go back has, again,like you're sort of expressing,
already given me a much broaderappreciation for a, an artist that I,

(05:20):
I kind of literally took for granted.
And I would encourage everyone to dothe same if they feel like they haven't.
You know, we talk about fresh listenand how to think about an artist fresh,
which, you know, for an artist of Missystature can be kind of hard to do.
But I think a lot of people are probablygoing to be in the boat that we are

(05:41):
where we've taken Missy for granted.
And the real gift, I think the realfirst thought to start with is think
about how different this music is still,there's still nothing that sounds like
it, even though people have been chasingand approximating it for a long time.
So avant garde and so immediatelyaccessible at the same time,

(06:05):
almost no one can do that.
Push the form forward andsell millions of records.
At the same time, you and I shared thatReddit post that was like a retrospective
of the album, and somebody said,
"My wife's dad now in his latefifties loves this record to death.
He said, it's this quote,number one record of all time.

(06:27):
It's been that way sinceI've known him for 18 years.
He's a redneck hillbilly from Kentuckywho farms for a living, but can rap
slash thing Every word of this record.
I've talked with him about it somuch, and he's always said, I've just
never heard anything like it before.
It sounds like it's fromanother planet or dimension.
It's absolutely mind blowing tounderstand how this was created.
He purely listens to old cowboycountry like way old, but loves

(06:49):
this record in Missy in general.
Pretty damn cool to see howmusic can touch so many different
backgrounds and upbringings.
I think this record transcendsso many labels in communities.
To know my father-in-law'splanting his crops, bumping this
religiously just makes me smile.
That's what music should be about."
think Missy Elliot is what music is about.
So let's talk about the ways how onthis strange, singular little document.

(07:13):
I think one thing I'll preview now that Ithink we will go into a little bit further
as we talk is in retrospect now, one ofthe things that has occurred to me is in
every way that Ms. Elliot sort of defiedthe expectations of her moment, which
makes sense both contextually and today,like you're point out, still kind of

(07:35):
weird in exactly the right way, in everyway that she defies those expectations
or bends a gender norm or sexualizessomething that's not supposed to be
sexualized or like promotes a thing aboutherself that people would otherwise think
to hide because it's, you know, not gonnahelp her career or something like, I

(07:58):
mean, all of those moments combined intoand I still haven't developed a good way
to say this, even though I can kind ofsee the thought, but like it makes for
a safe and accessible artist for someoneto approach, and I don't mean safe safe
in terms of musical choices, safe interms of lyrics, none of that stuff.

(08:19):
There's even a song titlewe're gonna laugh about.
'cause I don't even know that I cansay the entirety of it as we talk
about this fucking podcast, uh, aboutan album with a bunch of songs on it.
So like, it's not safe in that sense,but safe in the sense that probably
part of the reason I was drawn toher when I was younger was because

(08:39):
I was kind of uncomfortable withsome of her contemporaries who did
highly sexualize a lot of the music.
And there's nothing wrong with that,but I wasn't comfortable with it in
the same way that I can be with a song.
Even like computers down theroad, like, get your freak on.
It was like, I love that song.

(09:00):
I know what it's about.
I hear the lyrics and still
your relationship with your abilityto, your relationship with your
ability to talk about this stuff.
Well documented at this point on thepodcast, sort of an emerging theme
Yeah,
Elliot, perfect, perfect flagin the ground along the journey.
but I, I just, I think it, intrying to be vulnerable and make

(09:22):
fun of myself, I'm like channelingsome of the vibe of what's here.
Like she does that a lot.
Like even all the way down tothe video that we'll talk about.
That's.
You know, that a lot of people can bringto mind immediately when we talk about it.
And we haven't evensaid the name of it yet.
So many of those thingsdefied the expectations of
what a music video should be.

(09:42):
And especially with a female artist.
And like, regardless of whatthat statement was intended to
be, it still created a space forpeople like me to engage with it.
'cause it looks cool and it looks inthat sense, like friendly, you know?
So I think that is a surprising thingI've started to see in reverse as I try

(10:03):
to, further understand this artist andspecifically this debut album that we're
talking about to make this part easy.
every now and then we cover an artistthat has, uh, I guess pun intended here a
hilarious rap sheet in terms of accolades.
So let's just run downthis one real fast, okay.

(10:25):
And we're not even gonna cover everythingmajorly, but for those who might be
uninitiated or under appreciating,Elliot is the first female rapper
in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
She's in the songwriters Hall of Fame,four Grammys sold 40 million records,
bestselling female rapper of all time,a National Medal of Arts recipient,

(10:47):
which we might quote from later.
Michelle Obama.
I'll present that like, okay, so likethere's some form of accessibility
here like I was talking about.
but this record PlatinumGrammy nominated and almost
universally, critically acclaimed.
Um, it's on nearly every, all timebest albums list that you can find.

(11:11):
And I think one undercurrent thatwe'll discuss here is all those things
are true about her and all thosethings are true about this record.
And still it's probably allunderappreciated in terms of impact.
We'll talk about a coupleof specific reasons why.
but it's very likely we are actuallyunder counting, not over counting

(11:33):
all the influences taking place here.
It's really impressive.
I think another nuance that, shows howincredible she is in, just sort of her
prowess is that this album was co releasedon Goldmine, which is her imprint.
So I think part of the reason you seesome of those accolades and outcomes

(11:57):
is because even though she recordedand released this somewhat reluctantly
and a bit effortlessly, she stillhad total control of whatever I'm
gonna do, I'm gonna do it my way.
so I, call that out right up frontto say like, I think those two
things are directly connected.

(12:18):
So you mentioned the somewhatcasual recording, so I think that's
probably as good a place as Ineed to start 'cause it gives us a
little lens into the collaboration.
That's a really importantpart of this record.
But also the, the way that this albumcame to be at all I think is pretty
indicative of what was happeningin that moment and why we are.

(12:42):
Heaping praise on Missy Elliotin the very first, 10 minutes
of this episode to begin with.
'Cause no one's coming to checkin on us, this is us really going.
No, no, for real.
W we think about a lot of artists reallydeeply through the process of all of this.
And every now and then we come upon somebody and go, oh shit, even
I didn't understand this until now.

(13:03):
And now we do.
So this album was recorded basicallyin under two weeks at Master
Sound Studio in Virginia Beach.
So in October of 1996, the sameyear that Atlanta hosted the
Olympics and had its glow up.
Congratulations.
Um, but the cool, or like one of thecool aspects of like, those details

(13:26):
Missy, Elliot, and Timberland werealready an extraordinarily high demand as
songwriters and a, and a production duo.
And so the fact that they recordedit there in that period of time,
in that short of a period of time,all like, gives us a little glimpse
into what was happening becausethey could have gone anywhere and
could have been doing anything.

(13:48):
Uh, I mean, they are, notlong after that, right?
Like their work with Aaliyah wouldblow up like, so it was a big deal.
Not only that, they.
again, casually seems to be the rightword, casually recorded this one in
sort of a nearby bedroom feeling studio.

(14:09):
But on top of that, you know,something that I would've never
known at the time, but now I can seereally clearly in all the stories.
Like she was basically like the publicdemanded this record from her in a
Mm-hmm.
Like this got recorded because of themounting pressure from all the people
around her to release an album becauseof how desired she was, not only through

(14:34):
her existing work, but then as whateverthat would be, uh, in the form of a
solo artist or, or making a recordunder her own name A lot of people go
from sort of undiscovered to discoveredand then you get the investment and
then things take off and oh, theywere really that great all along.
Yes, in this case, this is somebodywho's so good at their craft that

(14:58):
they were known for it in one contextand people believed in her so much.
They already believed in whatever shewould do if she made a record that they
had never heard her try to make before.
Like, this is like outrageousamounts of public accolade,
praise, and pressure all at once.
and I think really re illuminated forme some of the context of this record,

(15:23):
because when I put it, I. That slot.
And I think about it that way.
They're sort of doing it offhand asconveniently as they possibly can, but
it, gives a little color to like somethings that are happening on the record.
One, which we'll talk about somemore, I'm sure, which is like how
often Timberland is referenced atall in this otherwise debut record by

(15:48):
A lot of four, a lotof fourth wall breaks.
Yes.
but also just like even the intro andoutro from Busta Rhymes, which I'm gonna
go ahead and give everyone permission.
After you listen to each ofthese twice, you may skip them.
Okay.
You can save yourself the sanity.
Just go on to track number two.

(16:10):
And then the last two tracks on the albumare also just like promo commercials.
You may skip them as well, butgo through them at least once.
But point being.
Busta from the very beginningof that track is basically
like kind of shitting on her.
And it's like, dude, I basicallydrove to the middle of nowhere to
come here and tell you about thisrecord because of how important it is.

(16:32):
And yet they made me drive hereto do this for you real fast.
And like it's all so likeright there and obvious.
and like it's just stuff I never would'vecaught otherwise or wouldn't have cared
about, you know, when it was a new recordor even just a relatively new record.
But now looking back on it, all thisstuff is hilarious and adds so much
interesting detail to everything.

(16:53):
And that's even before therecord starts in earnest.
There's so much confidence inMissy is the third person you hear
on Missy Elliot's debut record.
And this could easily be an episode wherewe talk about, the woman thing of it all.
And I don't want it to become that,like her greatness is gender agnostic.

(17:15):
But Busa was like one of her heroes.
And when I think a lot of peoplethink about Busta, they think about
the Busta that is like Missy, that,you know, they call each other twins.
So you think about his videos,his Hype William stuff, the woo ha
got you all in check type thing.
They don't remember as muchleaders of the new school.

(17:36):
And like he was on midnightmarauders and he'd been a fixture
for a really, really long time.
So there's a bit of like, Igot my hero to come coronate,
ha ha, in that really tight.
And then I got one of my friends in Locheto kick things off and then I come in.
So it's like I'm comfortablejust whoever wants to hop in

(17:57):
the double Dutch and vibe great.
And then I'll show up when I feel like it.
there's an ease and a confidenceto that move immediately.
The other thing that I thought was reallyinteresting, you mentioned making them
come to Virginia Beach, Virginia doesn'tget talked about nearly enough in the

(18:18):
regionalism conversation in hip hop.
And I saw a great article about how itwas basically the bridge spiritually
between New York and Atlanta.
Atlanta having the organized noise,heavy base thing from 94, 95 on, and
New York obviously having its wholemoment, not only with Biggie, but

(18:42):
like with bad Boy in general withWu-Tang, with, all manner of things.
And Virginia was sort of situatedweirdly between, but in this era,
you not only have Timbaland andMissy, you also have the Neptunes.
and Pharrell and Tim were in aproduction collective together
called Surrounded by Idiots, or SBIrecorded some stuff as far back as 91.

(19:07):
And then in sports you have AlanIversson coming out of Virginia, you
have Michael Vick coming out of Virginia.
So there's a weird what's in the waterthing about Virginia specifically
from like 94, 95 to 2000 2, 3, 4.
that's a micro moment in Americanculture that gets strangely

(19:30):
overlooked but dominant, really,really dominant punches way above its
weight class in terms of influence.
But I think it was because it wasso removed and so of its own thing.
Totally different thing fromMemphis by the way, a little
more of a gumbo thing happening.
but at the center of it truly.

(19:51):
Timbaland and Missy who describeeach other as soulmates in music,
which I really, really love.
Let's talk some more about thatas a bridge to that conversation.
Let's just finish with a quote directlyfrom Missy Elliot about this album quote.
I did this album for my fans andnot to make money because I'm

(20:12):
already making money with my songs.
I Hell yeah.
So again, hopefully we'veset enough of the stage.
no one had to do this, butthey sort of felt like they
should, and it like catalyzed.
The further careers of at least twopeople, if not more, after just like

(20:36):
effortlessly moving forward with whateverfelt like was supposed to happen next.
And to that end, you can never gowrong with, like, if you do feel like
you found your soulmate in your artform just go ahead and keep going.
Just keep doing the thing.
You'll eventually either strike goldor feel really good about how you
spent all of your time on this planet.

(20:58):
but this combination of Missy andTimbaland for sure was and is the
star of the show on this album.
It would become an interestingphenomenon from here.
But sort of in the leadup to this they had.
Like I mentioned earlier, likeworked and would go on to work
with, uh, Aaliyah before her death.

(21:20):
But for Aaliyah's second album,one in a million from 1996
like that went double platinum.
And at that point, like if you'redoing like tracking their trajectory
on a graph or whatever, this is wherewe start to do like the hockey stick
type of like logarithmic growth, right?
Like they were alreadyextraordinarily well known.

(21:42):
Both of them then they were well knownas this team, then they were building
and building, and then one in a millionfor real took off in a way that, put
them squarely in demand like globallyfrom from kind of across hip hop.
And again, like when we say sort oflike universal critical acclaim at
this point, um, this is really themoment that they were inside of.

(22:05):
And so that is the context thatthese two find themselves in
going into this particular record.
what can you even say about Aaliyah?
Um, before you even get into the rain.
I think it is a good moment toback up and talk about one in a
million or, cue it up and play it.
You know, stop, stop the tape.
Go switch over to that.

(22:26):
I remember being like, is that crickets?
are those crickets outside my window?
Or is it in the song?
'cause I listened to it late at nightand just be like, oh my God, everything
about this sounds so different.
and even as hip hop and r and b werelike starting to converge in interesting
ways around this time, the sensibilitiesof the two never quite matched as

(22:52):
seamlessly as they did with Aaliyah.
and she was such a superstar.
and I guess she'd been at it, that washer second album, one in a million.
She'd been at it for a minute by then.
it's one of those, you gotta be oldenough to remember it things, but.
I would encourage anybody like below acertain age to go watch interviews with

(23:14):
Aaliyah and sort of contemplate themagnitude of who she was, because with her
dying so young, it's easy to miss what asort of revelation she was in pop music.
Beyonce is probably the closestanalog of like, every time they do
a thing, it's a cultural moment.

(23:37):
I think Aaliyah would have sortof hit that cruising altitude if
she'd stayed alive and become afigure like that alongside Beyonce.
but we'll never know.
she and Selena go into that categoryof wondering about what ifs if
they'd had 40, 50 year careers.

(23:57):
but a huge aliya shaped void inculture to me, still to this day.
And you, you can, like withMissy, you can see Aaliyah's
influence kind of everywhere,
So put on your roller blades.
Put on one in a million and reallyfeel what it felt like to be
one of us in elementary school.

(24:18):
all skate, everyone skate.
And then the feeling of falling down.
'cause I don't know howto fucking roller skate.
Are you kidding me?
You know, are you just like, andthen it has a terrible noise and
then your knee feels really weird.
And then you give up and play.
Mortal Kombat the ninetieswere an incredible time.

(24:38):
the glow in the dark black lightcarpet playing Mortal Kombat with
what you're sure is a broken tailbonewhile Aaliyah and Kp and Envy play.
And you're like, I hopegirls think I'm cool.
And the answer is, you are not.
You are not cool enough to look coolwhile Aaliyah is playing my friend.

(25:00):
You just word painted the exact thing.
Yes, exactly.
There's no way to look cool inthat context when you look like me.
So I'm doing my best swinginginto then Timberland specifically
and his part of the duo.
I'm curious for your thoughts onthis, because when you think about

(25:23):
well-known hip hop production, I.
Duos teams, individuals, whatever.
You can sort of hear what itis about their approach that's
gonna make a song different.
You could sort of almost get outin front of it and describe a few
things that you could look for.
Yeah.
If they're producing it, it'sprobably gonna have three of

(25:43):
these five things or whatever.
I found myself at more of a lossdescribing them together, especially at
this particular time, other than beingable to sort of whittle it down from what
it isn't, which, so at that time, youknow, so we, we sort of talked about the,

(26:05):
the deaths of ACH and biggie happening notvery long before this record comes out.
So in this same moment that hip hopis finding its new footing, the sort
of cultural counterpart to the Missyand Timberland phenomenon is like
bad boy records and all that stuff.
And they are continuing on in the moretraditional lineage of sampling songs,

(26:32):
taking Diana Ross and whatever else,and just like chopping and flipping
and changing and all that stuff andsort of doing something on top of it.
Point being, when I think about Missy andTimberland, for the most part, there's
an absence of reliance on sampling.
not all the way to the sideof like, soulquarians and
literally playing the music.

(26:52):
but even like, a favorite of mine, right?
Like, get your freak on w hopefullywe'll talk about that even in a place
or two more before we get outta here.
But like, you know, that's a song thathas Punjabi and, Indian instruments
constructing a beat that sort ofsounds like it should be sampled
from something else, but specificallyisn't, and then also has like a

(27:15):
Japanese spoken word inside of it, allof which is like, as an aside, that
combination of things would probablyoffend our cultural sensibilities.
Now, 25 years later, like, bro, youcan't just throw three different cultures
into a bowl and then make sure thatthe beat sounds good, but point being
like none of that was sampled or likechopped and screwed stuff in the same

(27:37):
way that so much of the hip hop hasbeen in the, 20 and 30 years since then.
so there's like an absence of thatapproach, but like, what else is there?
You, you pulled something out aboutthe Aaliyah record, like how could
you describe what to listen for whenthis production duo was at the helm?
somebody made the interesting point thatyou can't appreciate how fully weird it

(27:59):
is until you listen to the quote, normalpeople that they produce for, and then
you listen to the two of them together.
You know, like it brought out a moreinteresting palette for somebody like
an Aaliyah or a 7 0 2 or a Genine,who's a little more like fastball
down the middle, radio sensibility.

(28:23):
You know, they're, those kinds ofartists aren't taking the same kind
of freaky risk, that Missy does.
And, and with Missy it's noteven a risk, it's just, we'd play
faster if we could the JohnnyCash, just like, here's what it is.
I, I don't know, I'm not gonnaput too much thought into it.
I think you gotta start withSonic Palette and Cadence.

(28:45):
So like, the main thing that you'llnotice if you focus on the high
hats, where he puts the hats andkicks is it's in weird places.
Listening to Tim is the first timeI heard a hip hop producer and was
like, this is Zigoo from the meters.
This is Bonzo.
This is like, he's neverdoing the high hat pattern the
same way twice in a 16 loop.

(29:06):
And it's kind of nutty.
It's like not aggressive like jazzdrums, but it's just different
enough where he's like bored witha four bar or something like that.
So it's, it always stays interesting.
It loops on big intervals orit doesn't really loop at all.
and they have a texture, like when youtalk about a Tim and Beat, you hear

(29:30):
it with Pharrell and the Neptunes andI, I think like they were the first
two true super producers at the popculture level where it sort of went
beyond their own insularity, likeCash money did for themselves or like
Paul and Juicy did for themselves,or like, DJ Premier did for New York
artists Timberland and the Neptunes didJustin Timberlake, they did Madonna.

(29:55):
They did, you know, they,they crossed it over.
Into middle of the mallculture in a big way.
But like there's a certain texturethat I would wanna look at, almost
the sound waves of, snares and kicks.
I mean, the kicks have a flatness and atightness to them, and then there's like

(30:19):
a, a bounce or a roll off or a softnessor a, there's a textural, tactile quality
to a lot of the snares that he picks.
And they're, so, you listen to 10Tim songs, and I'm probably not
saying it the right way, but youstart to get what I'm, they, they
like have a taste to them almost.

(30:41):
And you don't get that whenthey're pulling a drum loop,
a 16 bar break from a record.
He's like, he's finding pad tech, likeyou can almost feel the pad texture
on the machine that he's putting in.
And he calls it the bounce, theycall it the bounce a lot of places.
And I think that's what they're going for.

(31:03):
And so there's a DMV bit that yougotta get into the, Devonte swing from
Jodeci ostensibly discovered Timbaland.
So there's the like nineties r and bbit and everything that that pulls from.
You gotta talk about Teddy Riley andNew Jack Swing and what New Jack Swing

(31:24):
and Gogo brought in as far as like a,a mix of dance hall in the OG Jamaica
Sense and like street sensibility, likethose two energies coming together.
there's certainly some influence of Dr.Dre with G Funk and like 70 Soul hardened
a bit and like weird sense sounds.

(31:46):
and then I, me, I mentioned DJPremier, there's some cutting in
interesting ways, cutting and chopping.
The DJ Premier did, that's like streetbut sophisticated and interesting and
inverting and, and that sort of thing.
but there's a definite DC Virginiathing that lends itself to the

(32:08):
bounce and creates a, a texture.
I think you gotta think about itin terms of like real texture.
So it's not, you're right, it's notvoodoo where it's coming from the
instruments, but I think they're tryingto emulate a really organic feel.
Does that track?
Yeah.
think?
that's helpful because I canfeel the energy and texture

(32:30):
coming from a funk lineage.
But as you've pointed out, I wouldn'thave really thought about it with
these words, but like, it, it'sthe nineties, so r and b is pop.
So in many ways they are bringingover funk and hip hop and smoothing

(32:51):
it and polishing it enough to beinteresting r and b and pop music
that could pervade, I mean the, thedeepest parts of popular music culture,
uh, right at that moment in time.
But.
Has sort of rewarding details thatare in their, so which, all great pop
does, I mean, we've talked about thaton a number of records, whether it was

(33:14):
Rihanna, Olivia, Rodrigo, whatever,like great pop is not just good pop
on the surface that most people areenjoying it, but usually rewards you
for trying to be a dork about it.
And like, similarly, that kind ofhelps me think about, you know,
this, this same production approach.
'Cause there's, you're right,everything sounds a little bit unique.

(33:36):
Every time I isolated a kick ora weird sound I could hear like I
could, it felt so intentional as alittle spatial bit of the whole deal.
I think it's just been a curiousadventure for me specifically as, as
less of a hip hop head in general.
But like thinking both of a lack ofsamples and then also the way that

(33:59):
he'll play with a beat pattern isstill to me, pretty subtractive.
Uh, like he'll sort of delete thingsand stretch 'em out and play with the
rhythm a little bit differently than.
It sort of betrays the polishthat we're talking about.
There's this interplay between thelittle bit of surprise that it's giving

(34:21):
you and the predictability that youcan count on to make it a real hit.
And maybe we're just describing goodpop production, but I'll take it.
'cause like, I don't like moststuff that's designed to be
right at this target level.
But I, I love this and everypart of it is interesting.
So yeah, just trying to, I think,stretch out in front of people some

(34:44):
ways that they can engage with thisin ways that won't have them going.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I listened to a Tribe calledQuest and stuff like that.
I know what this sounds like.
generally.
Sure.
But like, I think this record inparticular, again, because it was
kicking off this weird bent that hip hopcould go on is a, a really cool moment

(35:07):
of time to, to check out especiallylike particular songs off of this.
But if nothing
I think you hit
to the rain Yeah.
I think you hit on something withspace though there He, Timbaland
had a conversation with MetroBoomin about production, I want to
say for Rolling Stone that I read.
And I. They talked about this conceptof production porn where you just

(35:29):
keep adding stuff and adding stuff,because you have all these sounds in
your head as you get a good bass going.
And Tim mentioned that Missy was abig influence on him early on because
she would reject a lot of his beats'cause they were too complicated.
And he'd say, yeah, I'd go backand listen to 'em and be like,
all right, I can see her point.
They're not simple enough.
There's incredible restraint on these.

(35:51):
And I thought about Augustus Pablo and,and reggae and toasting in general, just
like getting a vibe and a loop going andmaybe a little with can, but it really
reminded me more of the essence of reggae.
And maybe that's, maybe that'spast the blunt, the past the
dutchy thing that's just sort ofseeping into my brain on this.
but there's a real steadinessto the whole thing, you know?

(36:16):
It, it sort of stays in a vibethroughout and part of that's the tempo.
And part of that's one of the firstthings that I noticed is there's
like not a lot to a lot of thesesongs structurally or sonically.
And listening back to it reminded methat Timbaland was the first producer who

(36:39):
ever made me think, oh my God, I wannalisten to hip hop instrumentals now.
Just as their own thing specifically.
It was.
Gigawatt on Jay-Z's volume two, and ithad this wind noise that was accentuated
by this video that looked like thewindows screensaver, where you're

(36:59):
flying through space in warp speed.
And it was so visual and so minimalbecause there were only three or
four elements in the whole thing.
and then you listen to the rain,listening to the rain with fresh adult
ears and knowing it was as big a song asit was and then being like, oh my God.

(37:23):
It's just the one thing over and over.
It's just the little bit of bass, thedo do instrument from the sample track
and like a couple of other things.
And it's the hook, a Missything, the hook, a Missy thing.

(37:45):
But it's not even like verse chorus.
It, I, I don't know.
There's, I guess contrast it to likea Nirvana song where it's obvious
they use big swings and dynamics tosignal what the part of the song is
and move with tension and release.
There's not a lot of tensionand release, I guess between the
elements of a song like The Rain.

(38:06):
I guess I remember the anecdote, Timsaid, like, that was one I just had
on my keyboard and it was on a loop.
like no shortage of ideaswith these two, right?
Missy was like, what's that?
That's dope.
And I just kept doing it.
Then I put the baseline in itand she started going off and she
went, this is about to be crazy.
Next thing you know, she said, allright, all right, y'all gotta get out.
But we kind of created that one together.

(38:27):
Missy knew it was gonna be hitthe moment she heard the beat.
We were both hype.
She was hype about that record.
That was one of her first ones.
And after that, she tapped into a zone.
So I think that anecdote tees up the wholerest of the record for me, where it's just
like, that's self-evidently dope enoughthat we're just gonna do that for a while.

(38:49):
And you get an even stronger thesisstatement on, it's very funny to say, the
thesis statement of this album is a songcalled They Don't Wanna Fuck With Me.
I think it's the best thesis for thealbum, and it's the best preview of
what's to come because it's where shewraps the fastest and most confident.
So it's where you see the sneakpreview of Get Your Freak on Missy.

(39:12):
that doesn't really appear.
She's very low key, very low in the mix,very singing in a lot of these places.
You know, she doesn't like go as hard.
On 90% of the record, but in the middleof, they don't wanna fuck with me.
She goes, yo, Timbaland, I'mgonna just dance a little bit.
You don't mind if I get my boogie on?
Do you?
We don't gotta rhymethrough the whole track.

(39:33):
The track is banging by itself.
So it's just the meta reacting tothe thing that they're getting going.
That I think that's where the like reggaedance hall, oh, we've locked into a vibe.
let's keep it looping and I'mgonna go get a beer or whatever,
and let's just boogie for a bit.
I, there's such a realness to that, butI think that's what makes it listenable.

(39:57):
It's, it's all in that sort of like,let's not overthink it and let's not
over-engineer it structurally as a song.
It's just a vibe, you know?
It's a vibe thing.
and spiritually that liveson in like a frank Ocean.
You listen to like a blonde and there'sthis sort of, I don't even need to
put drums on this, but whereas Frank'sis like to evoke an emotional thing.

(40:21):
Missy's is just like, that's fun.
Let's let this ride for a minute.
Fun.
Fun.
That's it.
Fun.
Period.
It also reminded me the same thingthat you are describing also, the way
that they lock in, on the rain andto just kind of sit in it such that
you also can't tell how long has thesong been going on, when will it end?

(40:45):
it reminded me first of how JamesBrown used to do that, and then
very specifically and viscerally.
Reminded me of Led Zeppelin doing theCrunch and aping James Brown and doing
the thing in the song where they'relike, take it to the bridge and like just
do, just doing the whole meta on top ofMeta for music dorks only level thing.

(41:08):
like not only having that level ofcare and detail and almost like lore in
the music, but also having the, again,the 1973 Led Zeppelin confidence of, I
think I'll just do whatever the fuck Ifeel like doing actually, and you'll be
grateful for it 'cause it's real good.
Um,
Uh.
like remembering kind of all thosethings at once and remembering the vibe

(41:33):
of people who were spiritually in thisline, of which I would definitely include
both Robert Plant and James Brown ofjust like you were born to do this.
And then once you realized that you wereborn to do this, you did not experience a
lack of confidence that the best majorityof us experience on a regular basis as

(41:55):
we try to fumble our way through life.
Uh, and instead you, you allfind yourselves in these moments
and just exude excellence.
Just sweat it out just by sittingin front of a microphone or letting
Timberland do a loop on his keyboard,These moments remind me of what's
possible and the space between trulymagnificent artists and myself.

(42:20):
Right.
I think you can see evidence in whatthey're both respectively doing now,
you know, not to fast forward to thelegacy and influence part of things,
but it's, it almost less excellenceis sort of the guiding light.
Just like, we know we'regood, so let's just do it.

(42:42):
And it's more curiosity.
I know I talked about fun, butI, I, when I think about the two
of them, when I think about Tim.
I think about the way he's like alwaysprogramming loops and he's got a thousand,
you know, DATs or whatever saved.

(43:03):
I think about that Jay-Z clip with thedirt off your shoulder thing where he's,
he's flipping through 20 or 30 thingsand he hits dirt off your shoulder and
Jay goes, wait, what's that to know Tim?
And to think about that is likethey're, these two people are
just kind of always making stuff.
I think the gap that you expressis really just like, they have a

(43:26):
curiosity and a love and the fun,the energy comes from the process.
thinking about the, the world in termsof AI and creation now in 2025, the thing
that a lot of the end product peoplemiss with ai, like AI will assist in
creation or whatever, like, but it takesthe part out of the process that makes

(43:48):
people like Missy and Tim unique anddifferentiated is joy for the process.
There's joy for the processthat's evident here throughout.
And it comes from a, a curiosity andjust like a continual, always doing
something with your hands thing.
Actually, thank you for that.
That lights a fireunder my ass about this.

(44:09):
I think a big part of creativity thatwe'll notice from many of the artists
that we've talked about, but is also truehere, is like, they're not going to tell
you in words yet what they're going to do.
They just tell you that what's happeningtoday isn't good enough and we're
gonna do something different than that.
And like in that sense, so muchof artistic creativity comes from

(44:30):
just like, I don't know what itis yet, but I know what it isn't.
And in that sense, like that is,to me you made me think of it
when you mentioned the AI stuff.
cause I am hesitant to go oneway or another and try to make
it Boolean on any of this stuff.
But to your point, We can't just plugin technology in the places where we

(44:53):
are trying to whittle something down.
Like you can tell the computer,okay, go whittle a little triangle
off the top in this particular area.
But like you, the person have tobe visualizing what the thing is
that you're making on the otherside of saying what's not there.
Whittle it down.
It's not that change this, keep it going.
No, not quite.

(45:14):
And like iterating and iterating andshaping it until it's something that
you couldn't conceptualize before.
But now that you see it, you'relike, yeah, that's, that's the thing.
You know?
And I think not, not only is that a goodreminder for these times because no matter
what magical tools appear before you, likethe ability to visualize and conceptualize

(45:36):
a thing that isn't there and then createit out of nothing is still the fundamental
human experience that we all need to bepretty good at doing over and over again.
But zipping all the way back intime then, like what she said to
MTV news back in 97 about her workand this album in general, she just
said the radio is stuck right now.

(45:58):
Everything sounds thesame as far as video wise.
Everything looks the same.
So we feel like we're coming in andwe're gonna change the whole thing.
she's not coming out andgiving you a 10 point.
Here's exactly what the thing is thatI'm doing now or that I'm gonna do,
or the things that I'm gonna change.
But like many revolutionary type artists,no matter sort of what surface area

(46:22):
they touch, they can go, okay, but we'reon the same page that this isn't it.
Right?
This thing that we're lookingat together, that's not it.
We need it to be different.
It's stuck, it's wrong,it's broken, it's something.
And until we figure out what theright idea is, I'm gonna go over here
and do something else in response.
so I think, there are probably fivedifferent windows into this same idea

(46:47):
that we can share in this moment.
But like, swinging out of the context ofwhat hip hop was before Missy Elliot sort
of took off with this particular record.
it's just one lens tolook at what happened.
Yeah, it happened in the aftermath ofa lot of like really public and high
visibility deaths in the hip hop industry.

(47:10):
But that doesn't itself mean that whatthis record did or what it created
wouldn't have happened, shouldn'thave happened, any of that stuff.
And just like.
Maybe that feels obvious at this point,but like every time we go back and look
at a record and re-contextualize it, Ifeel like I do a fresh exercise of sort
of what I'm trying to convey there.
And it helps me to be better at likehistory, to be able to go back in time and

(47:36):
go, here are six different ways I can lookat this and probably better understand
how everyone came to these little momentsand what changed and what got, you know,
what happened longer term because of it.
Like all of that just sort of makesyou better at understanding things
in reverse, uh, and thereforemakes you better at appreciating
all the details that went into it.
So thanks for attending our How to Be aDecent Person, soapbox, uh, slash ted talk

(48:01):
that we usually get into in the middle.
And, uh, I made sureuncovered it for us here.
I don't even mean it in the be abetter person thing, I just mean it
in, uh, like, don't kill yourself.
You know, like, here, here's the
Yeah.
want to continue to bealive in this world.
The joy is in the doing, andMissy is such a good teacher.

(48:24):
in that way, like we've talked so muchabout the Prince principle and the only
way to exist in the world is to try to bethe one you Missy's an incredible guru.
'cause it's like the oneyou was there all along.
And it's just your job to find whateverthat means in this moment, in the

(48:46):
context of this thing, and changethe atmosphere with your learnings.
Invite people in on the journey.
So maybe before we get too far awayfrom it, let's hit the exercise.
That's always really helpful here.
The, I just went back and tried to listento this with fresh ears for the first time

(49:07):
and what stands out and what feels cool.
Exercise, which almostalways is a fascinating.
Thing for us to do for records that wemay have known about and or liked around
the time that they actually came out.
Because when it hits thatparticular little moment in
time, sometimes it becomes likea little soft blind spot for us.

(49:30):
You know, it's like, well, I haven'tever had to go back and investigate this.
I think it once again, made for aninteresting thinking here, uh, and sent
me in a bunch of different directions.
Where did you, as someone who always knows
it would be deceptive to say a littlebit more about hip hop as someone who's

(49:51):
always more well versed than this,I'm curious what stood out to you?
And I kind of want tocontextualize mine based on that.
I've touched on a bit of it.
the steadiness of it throughout thatreminded me of King Tubby meets Rutgers
Uptown was a big surprise for me.
It stays in a groovekind of the whole time.

(50:14):
So I, I think a lot of thetempo, bit of it so surprised me.
there were a handful of tracks whereevery time they came back around, there
was like a distinctive thing aboutit that I liked on me Without you.
We talked about, each song being a featuremoment for a different player on it.

(50:35):
There's a, a little bitof that flavor here.
So like, beat Me 9 1 1 is probablyone of my favorite Tim moments.
'cause you get all theTimberland bells and whistles.
You get the scratches, the breathsreally hardcore backbeat, he quote
unquote plays way behind the beat.
That's one of the best examplesof the Meter Z, high hat

(50:58):
idiosyncrasies, I think you'll find.
There's really funny stuff on thisrecord, that's like as funny as her
being fish islands in a garbage bag suit.
on, I'm talking, singing forthe chorus, singing the words.
I'm such a good rapper.

(51:19):
But singing it is like suchan insane choice and flex.
there's a lot about friendlyskies that tripped me out in
particular in a different way thanwe talked about with Project Pat.
recycling elements from sonicelements from their own world almost
as a signature thing or a wink isso different than the choice I felt

(51:43):
like I would make as a producer.
So like that brown sound from Genuine'sPony, he uses on Friendly Skies,
and it's the song with GI on it.
Which is like, remember his other thing?
It's like that's a fearless choice.
' cause it could be so corny deployed in thewrong way, here's the wrestler entrance

(52:06):
tag for Ginuwine almost, or something.
So I'd be a bad producer, I think,'cause I'd burn sounds rather than
thinking of them as signatures or justlike, that's a cool sound pleasing
sound to the ear, so I wanna reuse it.
So it's, it, shows really confidentinstincts and moments like that.
And then there's like a straightup black moth, super Rainbow Vogue

(52:26):
quarter thing that happens on that.
Yeah.
and it's like, that's a wholediversion where he's just like, I'm
gonna do a Peter Frampton thing forthe last little bit of this song.
crazy Choice, but it works.
and then in addition to referencingthemselves and their world of friends
who are like all featured on the record,but then they reference some of their

(52:49):
other stuff, Missy Interpolate, onein a Million on Getaway and s Wvs.
Can We, uh, the guitar from thathas interpolated a number of
different times on the record, so.
They flex their own vocabularyand let it evolve in version.
So there's some more of thatsort of like reggae cultural

(53:11):
inflection to that approach to me.
But then when they do deploy samples,they're killer beyond belief.
So the, and Peoples One on TheReign is an obvious one, but Socket
to Me has the Del Phonics horns.
and I went down the rabbit hole tryingto figure out who actually played that
horn part because it gave us ready ornot for the Fujis, it gave us Socket

(53:36):
to me, which is I might like thatsong More Than The Rain, honestly.
And it gave us who runit by Three six Mafia.
Could that guy who obviously was like ahired gun player, have ever known that he
would ripple into eternity in that way.
then again, on Friendly Skies, they reworkthe intro part of like one of the most

(54:01):
killer Earth, wind and fire songs, newWorld Symphony underappreciated song from
gratitude that is like a halfway pointbetween Funkadelic and Moish Orchestra.
like a lot of people have sampled a lotof Earth, wind and Fire, but it's such an
aggressively weird choice to sample thatone and then to use it on an airplane.

(54:22):
Metaphor sex song.
So there's just like a lot, a lotgoing on, and it's all deployed
with really tasteful restraint.
And the other sample bit, likewhen you go to who sampled almost
everything referenced in thereis not like beat or musical part.

(54:42):
It's vocal slash lyrics because Missydeploys so much classic hip hop cadence.
you know, and Izzy, Izzy, ah, that'slike obviously an ODB flip, and then
she turns it into lyrical gibberish.
But there's so much like she'sa clear student of hip hop.
She's clearly a great songwriterof r and b songs, given her

(55:06):
pedigree and the melodies that shewrites for the choruses and stuff.
And it all adds up to an effortlessness.
So, just to quickly recap, weird beats,strange, dad level tempo referencing
themselves constantly, mutating influencesand samples into fractals of themselves

(55:28):
all adds up to Missy Elliot as a genre.
after three or four listens, I waslike, this is its own genre of music.
Still to this day.
What of that resonates with you?
What else stood out?
What's your take?
Thinking of it as its owngenre works pretty well.
'cause that's sort of what I wastrying to like mentally process because

(55:52):
it feels a little bit out of time.
It's like the more I try to chasethe shape of whatever is inside
of this particular sound, the moreI have trouble like placing it.
Because a few things you mentionedthough helps me think through it and, and
maps to some of my experiences because,so like, let's use friendly skies.
So you mentioned the, like thevocoder and some of the weird choices.

(56:18):
After five listens through something.
Right?
Some of you mentioned, some of themstart to really settle in and sort
of take on a life of their own.
And that one connected directly toChildish Gambinos, me and Your mama
for whatever reason, like sonicallythe pieces all of a sudden felt like

(56:38):
a reorganization of the same thing.
And but then as we tried our best totalk about, even on that early episode,
covering that record, like that Childof Gambino record is pointing directly
down a path back towards Funkadelic.
And so I kept, like, these were, theexperiences I kept kind of having on

(57:00):
this record is like, I would hear a thingand go, I know where that comes from.
How did they get that here?
Like, how did they add that in?
I understand.
I see it, I get it, but how did theygo from this song doesn't exist to,
I think I will do it this way now.
It just, kind of blew me awayon in a bunch of different ways.

(57:20):
But then again, that feeling would have afeedback loop similar to what I mentioned
at the beginning of this episode, whichis like, I think somehow we've managed to
underappreciate all of this somehow still.
so the same, how did they get herefeeling was also reflected in like,
You mentioned I'm talking, or she talksabout like, I'm such a great rapper.

(57:44):
Like all of a sudden I couldsee that song everywhere.
Vibe wise, it's cloud rap.
It could get dropped today as is ahundred percent and blow right up on
Spotify at just no changes whatsoever.
Well, okay, maybe if you removelike bomb diggy from it as
like a phrase that would help.

(58:05):
cause you know, the kids,they sniff that stuff out now.
But like besides that, everything aboutit feels completely modern, feels laid
back, new and fresh at the same time.
the audacity of saying I'm such a goodrapper in the middle of my song took me
back to what feels like now Baby Clifftrying to absorb Rihanna's sex with me,

(58:27):
where she's just like, Hey, sex with me.
So amazing.
Like, oh shit.
Okay.
Well, okay.
Shit.
Ma'am, this is a Wendy's
and then, uh, speaking of the song titlethat I still can't even say fully, uh,
all the way through in this episode, sowe'll just shorten it to Don't Be Coming.

(58:49):
the
in my face,
which is notably
a borderline of country song title.
You know what I mean?
exactly.
coming.
Yeah.
Yes.
Uh, yes.
A a eyes wide open while winking,double entendre level thing.
Yes.
And still it makes me alittle uncomfortable to see.

(59:12):
Um, but like after I listened tothat one a bunch then I couldn't get
getting some by Shauna outta my head.
Like the bounce of them were, theystarted to overlap and then I could,
once again, I could see it everywhere andthen I could hear all the getting some
remixes and everything that was like,literally 10 years after this record.

(59:34):
But just again, gets reflectedin a song that's not even in
the, the same range or decade.
do you know who Shauna's dad is?
This sounds like a fun, we paused thepodcast and you're asking me an aside
about the neighborhood, but no, I don't.

(59:55):
I learned just this weekbecause of the movie Sinners,
Okay.
on the tip of everyone's tongue.
Uhhuh,
is the daughter of perhaps our favorite,bluesman, one of our favorites, someone
we've seen live together, buddy Guy,
what?
I don't know how, with our loveof DTP and our love of Buddy Guy

(01:00:18):
that we missed that connection.
No idea.
just this week somebody told me,yeah, Shauna's daddy is in that new
Michael B. Jordan Ryan Coogler movie.
And I was like, who's Shauna's daddy?
And they were like some blues guy.
And I Googled it and it was buddy guy.

(01:00:39):
And I was like, no, no, no, no, no.
Not some blues guy.
The blues guy.
Still to this day.
Wow, that's a totally unexpected,but helpful aside, uh,
free free Snapple fact.
Yeah.
well, okay.
Centers is a pretty good example ofwhat we unironically are trying to do,

(01:01:01):
at least in part through this podcast.
Okay.
That movie is in one sense, not for us.
It's not for us.
That's okay.
There's no problem with that.
It's good be able to recognize thosethings to support other people when
something is for them that's all good atthe same time, one thing I noticed and

(01:01:23):
appreciated about myself and about ourcomplete, uh, relentless Dorkiness about
music is the discourse started poppingoff with like, so have you heard this
story about the Crossroads and the devil?
Uh, yes.
Why haven't you wait a minute?

(01:01:43):
And then it was just like, oh, hold on.
People don't fucking knowabout Robert Johnson.
it was another one of those, likeeverything is the same and all is one
type of historical convergence moments.
And so if you focus in on some of theimportant stories in your lineage, you
will like have a little cultural key thatunlocks things ahead of other people.

(01:02:03):
And it just, it blew me away in atruly shocking and surprising way.
How many people were now rediscoveringthis like, extremely, deeply important
story that has played itself out throughour culture over the last hundred years.
In remembering once again thata lot of people are running
around having no idea what under.

(01:02:27):
Yeah, it reminds me, I had amentor early in my career who was
always full of Hallmark wisdom.
and one of the things he alwayssaid was, it's easier to become
a success than remain a success.
And, you know, the, the JimCollins business Folkiness of that
aside, that's a mindfulness thing.

(01:02:48):
and the equivalent here is it'seasier to learn than remember.
And a large part of this podcast, Ithink is the practice of us remembering
and reminding ourselves folding itinto the cheese, so to speak of today.
So right now we're remembering the momentof Missy and the weirdness of Virginia and
whatever, and we hardly have to rememberthe blues lore and Robert Johnson like

(01:03:14):
we talked about in the Sun House episode,because that is, the Rosetta Stone for
us, for everything as southern boys.
but when I read that stuff about peoplenot knowing about that lore, which I
thought like, I thought that was likeon the American citizenship test that
you had to know about that type of
stuff.
Shows me, I felt guilty.

(01:03:34):
'cause I feel a sense ofresponsibility to help people
collectively remember the importanceof the blues and stuff like that.
And we've been so far awayfrom that journey for a minute.
But that, and the sinners momentties directly to this in every way
because this has only been and somechange years since this moment.
And she was at Coachella this year.

(01:03:59):
And there's a lack of appreciation,and I'm not blaming it on the kids.
It's, it's like culture is so fast,fast and eat now it's hard to know what
a seismic thing it is to have MissyElliot who largely stepped away from
this stuff sometime in the late aughts.
And we talked about with Aaliyahearlier in the episode, it's easy

(01:04:19):
to learn, it's hard to remember.
So to keep the richness of thehuman experience and what all these
expressions, and the influence oflike, artists in the now, and I know,
I know we'll get to that with Missy.
You always have to be relearningand remembering and visiting the
library and go into the museum.

(01:04:40):
And that's what I'm gladwe're doing here with Missy.
I mean, it's, we talked about itwith black ma Super rainbow, right?
Like.
2007 being sort of a year oflost media gets lost in the
crack between analog and digital.
and in some ways this did too inthe early years of the transition
between analog and digital.
So it's up to us to just like ourway through it a little bit, I guess.

(01:05:03):
Well said
Do you wanna tell that story?
You wanna tell that story aboutthe analog digital conversion
and the impact that it had?
The, the transition moment on this record?
'cause I think you
Yes, absolutely.
That's where I was going next.
Right after I equipped that.
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Right now, someone is listeningto this podcast going, hold on.

(01:05:25):
So the devil went down to Georgia isbased on a thing and they're gonna go
on this really fun little southern boyjourney soon and discover everything
comes back to the blues, as we havealways held as our main contention.
I hope that person inthe middle of nowhere.
Whether it's in America or otherwise,gets to enjoy the third person detached

(01:05:51):
perspective that we didn't get beingin Georgia and told about the devil.
Constantly there is a tweet, it'slike an all time favorite tweet
for me up there with drill tweets.
Somebody said, devil went down to Georgia.
It's fascinating to mebecause it's so American.
In any other culture, it wouldbe a cautionary tale of hubris
and fooling with a demonic.

(01:06:12):
But in America, Johnny actuallyis just better than the devil.
It's so American.
Yep.
not scared him.
show about it
and shot it on the side of a mountain.
That's a monument to Confederate generals.
So yeah, we had to dig our wayout of that just a little bit.

(01:06:34):
I wonder if there's something aboutMissy's proximity to the nation's
capital that is accidentally drawingall of this American history out.
Maybe Okay.
You've, you've teased us.
We'll swing back into the story'cause this is really cool.
Uh, one of the things we get to do iswe look back on things and remember
them historically, is we get toalso see these weird moments that we

(01:06:56):
never know that we're in at the time.
Uh, and then can look back onthem in understand what a strange
transition technology has presentedus with a lot of the times.
So, super Dupa Fly's Lead single,which we've talked about a billion
times already on this episode.
The rain, uh, which does have thevideo, that was a very important,
all those things massive hit on radioand MTV and yet did not chart in the

(01:07:22):
hot 100, which would otherwise beyour way of tracking exactly that.
And that was because in thenineties, labels started phasing out.
The kids will never believe this.
Not only did CDs used to exist, butthey, the record labels used to make
individual CDs of the singles, whichwere then also commercially available.

(01:07:44):
And that was how like, major hitswere issued as promotional singles
out to the radio stations themselves.
and so Billboard had a longstandingrule that a song had to be commercially
available as a physical single to chart.
And then.
At this literal period of time thatwas beginning to disqualify otherwise

(01:08:07):
very popular songs because the recordlabels were starting to go, why the
hell are we making these and for whom?
And so they stopped doing it.
And so even though this song was hugewhen it came out, in retrospect much
like the way we have to look at BarryBonds and Mark McGuire and say, well,

(01:08:29):
they did set records, but I actuallydon't know if they really did it the
real way or not because they were LanceArmstrong in the shit out of everything.
Similarly, if we look back on thisperiod of time in music, we're not
gonna necessarily see the impact ofSuper Dupa fly in the way that it
actually exists because of the way thatwe were tracking all of that shifted

(01:08:51):
over and created a gap and a lag inthe, the way that we track things.
I, I forgot that sugar rays fly wasin the same period as this and had a,
a laugh out loud at like two levels,you know, like doom difficulty levels.
There's, you can do fly oryou can soup A dupa fly.

(01:09:14):
Yeah.
The, the two examples that one articlethat was mentioning this phenomenon
drew out were, yes, sugar raysfly and Will Smith's men in black.
So just like, I don't know what totell you about 1996 and 1997, but
that is what it felt like was theexact triangulation of sugar rays
fly and Will Smith's men in black.

(01:09:36):
That's, we were all there and this recordcame from out, from under it and helped
propel us into something that was morecreative than both of those things put
together, which we thank them greatly for.
You know, the first CD singlethat I ever bought from it was
maybe not Turtles at that point.

(01:09:56):
It was maybe Warehouse Music was a songwhere Missy plays an uncredited role.
Daddies.
All About The Benjaminsbecause I liked the Rock remix.
So shout out to the band, buzz Bubble.
Okay.
The
haven't touched John.
cool.
Yeah, we're on the same page about that.
Yep.

(01:10:17):
I think I remember correctly thatDave Grohl was on it, played drums
maybe, but also reminded me that.
He tried to sign Missy to Bad Boy andinstead she went and did her own thing
so she could have like blown up andbeen part of the machine, but certainly
been taken advantage of by the machine.

(01:10:39):
and she's on all about the, she'snot on all about the Benjamin's, but
she helped inspire the shape of it.
and the locks told a storyabout that many years later.
But thinking about the absurdityof owning a CD with just one song
on it, I think I paid 4 99 forit, is just like so hilarious Now.

(01:10:59):
Man, you got me thinking about that.
All about the Benjamin's remix.
And then around ish the same timeinterneted, my way to the Bombs over
Baghdad remix was Zach Deca on it.
And those two things, those two trackscomprised a lot of my early existence
Uhhuh,
I've,
being.
Just

(01:11:19):
I feel some type of way that, thatthe Zach Day laroche remix is on
streaming now and not strictlyavailable as an arbitrarily caught
off at the beginning and end.
96 kilobytes per second.
Worst audio file you've everheard, where you're like, this
is definitely a deep fake.
Before we even knew what that was.

(01:11:41):
I almost don't like thatit's not lost media.
Like I, I kind of wish we couldMandela affect it a little
as an artifact of its time.
Kids don't know what it waslike to try to download a thing
that had a name on the file.
And then only once you get the fileand listen to it do you actually
know whether it's the thing or not.
Uh, and a lot of times

(01:12:02):
Real big fish underscoreat take on me real cover.
Do not delete mp3.
Oh man.
So swing in all of this, I think backtowards, uh, especially some of the longer
term impact that this record and then Ms.Lee Elliot would have we kicked off this

(01:12:23):
episode with quotes 'cause they're good.
There are a few more places wherepeople talk about Missy Elliot
directly that I think are even morehelpful than us continuing to wax
on the topic one way or the other.
One set of quotes I'll pull excerptsfrom, I won't do the whole thing because
there's this awesome article, uh, wherea bunch of former hip hop and r and b

(01:12:44):
artists are basically asked Can you justtell me how important Missy Elliot was?
And they were all like, yeah, no problem.
Of
I get to be part of this.
Yes.
Right.
So of those people, uh, one of theinterviewees was, uh, Monica r and
b artist popular in the ninetiesand from College Park, Georgia.

(01:13:06):
Thank you very much.
Monica said several very kind thingsabout Missy Elliot, but I, I think
specifically brings out how this recordhit for people when it first dropped.
Uh, and she said, when I firstheard the single, uh, the first
thing that I knew was that I wasabout to be a smash, hit record.

(01:13:26):
Unbelievable.
When I think of it now, morethan 20 years later, you don't
forget how different she sounded.
She is the epitome ofwhat an innovator means.
She's so creative, and she was so fearlesswith her approach to things, and she
made sure that her visuals matched thesound and took 'em to the next level.
And when you think about a Missy record,you can also think about what you saw.

(01:13:49):
That scene in the Black plasticBag suit, nobody could ever forget.
Like, yeah, we've been able to referenceit in a podcast where we didn't have
to even establish what it was about.
And it's gonna work for 90% of thepeople listening to this as it is.
But she would go on to say MissyElliot knows exactly what she's doing.

(01:14:10):
And I think it's because she doeseverything based off of feeling.
If something doesn't feelright, she doesn't do it.
And what's so endearing about her is,even though she's an iconic creator of
music and videos, is she's so humble andlike, I mean, we'll never get the chance
to meet or talk to Missy Elliott, so thisdoesn't matter one way or another other

(01:14:32):
than to constantly remind people thatartists are some wild fucking people.
And we talk about alldifferent sorts of 'em.
Some of 'em are good and bad and whatever,they're sort of all over the place.
But a lot of what we find and the peoplewho make the most impact, and Kyle
tends to bring it out the most out ofthe two of us, is like, these people
have a connection with how they arefeeling and they can go, I wanna feel

(01:14:57):
a way about a thing that doesn't exist.
And they can go from where theyare to that thing existing and them
feeling a way about it faster than me.
Or you could evenconceptualize what that means.
And like, I encourage people with this inmy line of work, which is not nearly as
creative as any of this stuff, but like.
I like reminding people the same thingis like when someone starts learning

(01:15:17):
guitar, like the main difference betweensomeone who doesn't know how to play
guitar and someone who's very, verygood at guitar is that the person who's
very good at it has done it a lot more.
That's pretty much it.
Like everything else is sortof a detail along the way.
And so similarly, like when we encounteran artist and other artists when
interviewed about them, say, here'swhat's special about this person.

(01:15:40):
I can put my finger directly on it.
They do a thing based on feeling and ontop of it when they can also come back and
say, and those people are humble and likespecifically point out basically like,
this is not just a good artist, but a goodperson who exists in the world, who is
utilizing what they're creating creativelyand actually make a further impact beyond

(01:16:04):
just doing interesting things with art.
Like when we encounter people likethat, it's worth paying attention to.
It's almost always a sick payoff.
To just go super far into an artistthat you can hear is not only
creative and doing something new,but also known for being humble,
kind, interesting and curious.

(01:16:24):
that's so rare that when we stumbleacross it, uh, we should not, like we said
at the beginning, take it for granted.
That's usually the sign.
You've got a a lot aheadof you if you dive in.
I totally agree.
It's that old aphorism, you know, thebest way to be interesting is to be
interested, and you and I talk about it alot in the context of punk rock and we're

(01:16:47):
pit retired, we're, we're borderline twogenerations out of the sort of zeitgeist.
Generation of new bands shaping the scene.
but punk keeps you connected toyouth culture and the importance
of youth voices and not gettinglocked into the way that things are.
You know, it's always been this way.
Whatever keeps you from getting jadedin a similar vein to everything that you

(01:17:11):
just said and added onto the Monica quote,Timbaland was doing a bit of a track by
track in one interview and talked about,he said this one thing that I thought
was really interesting, that she wasnever a hater emphasis on the word never.
He said Debra's one of her good friends,they're still best friends to this day.
She wanted it to belike an all girls thing.
Like these are the top girlsand they're all on my record.

(01:17:32):
It was about hooking up with thewomen that were creative like her,
and she always looked at it that way.
She always made friends with otherwomen who were doing it like her.
It was a girl power thing.
Even when Eve came out later, Missywas like, that girl Eve is hot.
She was never a hater.
Every girl that came out, shechampioned and she championed hard.
So like, she was interested and sheremained interested, and we talked

(01:17:54):
about the curiosity earlier, andthat extended to like, think about
21 Jump Street when Dave Francois like, don't be like that man.
A, a stranger's, just afriend you haven't met yet.
There's a joy and a playfulness toeverything about Missy Elliott's world
that invites you in because it's like,don't you want to come in and like.
Touch the weird, be alittle weird together.

(01:18:15):
Like, wouldn't it just be better if wewere ourselves and had fun and said, fuck
all that bullshit that got people killed.
what if we just lived, man?
Like, just, just lighten up.
Just get in this trash bag suitand walked down the street.
Which by the way is a thing thatactually literally happened.
she quote tweeted a couple of yearsago when they announced that it

(01:18:38):
was the number one hip hop videoof all time by Rolling Stones.
She said, fun fact.
I had to go to a gas station in Brooklyn,New York to get air in this blow up suit.
And the suit blew up so big Icouldn't fit in the car, so I
had to walk back to set down thestreet in this outfit in Brooklyn.
All caps dim people was ridingpast like, she must be high.

(01:18:59):
Well fun fact, if you are and you have topass a drug test, uh, wearing garbage bag
outfit and then walking around outside isa pretty good way to pass that drug test.
That's how I used to cut weightand wrestling in the school in
an uninflated, Missy Elliot,
You know, I'm glad you brought it up
they said it's not a trash bag suit.

(01:19:19):
It's a quote, couture Michelin suit.
Oh, no doubt.
No doubt.
The, the, the main thing that separatesme from being a stylish individual
is not in fact the clothing, but thefact that I would have no idea if
I looked stylish when I was or not.
So similarly, I don't really know thedifference between a trash bag suit, uh,

(01:19:40):
and something fancy other than whetherI could get it at Value Village or not.
But I'm glad that you mentioned thejoy of it, because like that is,
again, in retrospect, something thathas become a brand new lens on all
of this for me, and specifically, Ilike the idea of challenging people
to return to the video, the rain.

(01:20:01):
The more that you think, youknow, that video, the more I
want you to go back and do this.
Because the thing that stood out to meto all of the things you just mentioned,
Kyle, and especially about sort ofthe context of that moment, like that
video expresses community and joy.
like almost that's it.
Like it's just a bunch of people whoare all cool with each other, smiling

(01:20:25):
on camera at exactly a time where a lotof people might have otherwise thought
of hip hop as like the, an increasinglyserious endeavor It has escalated
to the point of literal death now.
this is an art form thatdeserves, somberness and instead

(01:20:45):
this entire video is like we'vealready talked about musically.
It basically just bounces itsway through three minutes.
we get a whole bunch of peopletogether, some of whom don't really
do much of anything on the track, uh,but are all there anyway, standing
there in front of a fish island.
And then again, like look closelysmiling and specifically Missy
Elliot smiling, expressing joy,and doing so many things at once.

(01:21:10):
Like we, at this point, you know, evenin, in recent episodes we've talked
about the cramps, we've talked aboutall sorts of different artists that
like invert and subvert gender-basedexpectations, sexualize one thing that
shouldn't be, and un sexualized thingsthat should be like all that stuff.

(01:21:31):
Right?
And here again, sort of returning to athing I was trying to describe earlier,
like there is an unmitigated joy that'sjust on display and on top of it, like
we would be able to learn a little bitmore now in interviews from the time.
But, even Missy said about that wewanted to make fun of the way that

(01:21:52):
record companies try to make black womenlook white, fake hair and fake music.
the whole thing is like ajoke and it is serious 'cause
you shouldn't have done that.
It's also funny and not that serious.
Don't be so serious about it.
This is a very important record.
Everybody wants it.
But also I don't care that much.
I sort of just did it in a bedroom ina couple of weeks and then we just made

(01:22:14):
this video, which is just, effectivelylike a budget jeriah video we do
and don't care all at the same time.
And somehow it works.
'cause again, going right back towhat we were just talking about,
like there is a sense of communitysupport and just like positive vibes.
We're gonna be weird, but everyone'swelcome to be weird with us.
And like, this is the wholething that we're doing now.

(01:22:36):
even returning to it now, it blowsme away how much that was trying
to make a vibe shift in 1997.
You know?
a couple of things occurredto me as you were talking.
One was in an NPR retrospectiveof the song of the video.

(01:23:00):
it opened with talking abouthow in the nineties rap video
girls were scantily clad.
And this was such asilly inversion of that.
But I love the way they put it.
It was like Missy wassaying, you want curves?
Here's your curves.
I know I have a different figurethan the sort of two archetypes in
hip hop where it's a woman tryingto be very masculine or a woman

(01:23:23):
trying to objectify her femininity.
And it's like, it's showing howabsurd all of that is on its face.
It's both of those thingsand neither at the same time.
Which leads me to my second thought that Ihad as you were talking about the joy and
the community and the video, and that's,that it is very lynchian and that's not

(01:23:43):
a word that I ever would've thought.
It's a word that gets way overused and nowthat David is gone, the commodity of what
is lynchian is even more watered down.
But I have to imagine that David Lynchloved everything about Missy Elliot.
And the thing that so many peoplemiss about his work is his glee.

(01:24:04):
In the absurdity.
And that's why people like KyleMcLaughlin can do so well in a
David Lynch project and then do sowell as the mayor in Portlandia.
'cause it's the same thingwith two slightly different
knob turns on the same dial.
There's a very lynching quality tothe weird colors and the vignettes

(01:24:24):
and the moving in and out of things.
And it, not really telling a story,but bringing you in and out of world
moments and oh my God, why is therethis insane choreographed dance
where they're pouring down rain onthem indoors, is absurd and surreal.
And then all these friends areshowing up that you may or may not
recognize and they're just sort oflike flossing in the mirror a little

(01:24:48):
bit, getting ready to go out to theparty and you're just like hanging out
with them like you're their friend.
It's all got the same silliness as likea blue velvet or a wild at heart, or
the lighter moments and Twin Peaks.
To me, it's very funny.
It's a very funny videoand it's a gorgeous video.
And when I think about Hype Williams,I think about shit like Big Pimpin

(01:25:11):
and like when he became Hype Williamswith the like Pin and pixel, diamond
zoom name logo at the beginning,like Lucasfilm type stuff when he was
larger than life, $20 million man.
But like.
They're just having fun.
Hype Williams, by the way.
Another person that's a, like,if you don't know now, you know

(01:25:31):
that you need to go look up.
Everything about the visualsof the nineties was like really
informed by Hype Williams.
And Hype was very inspired bythe singularity of Missy Elliot.
She gave him a platform to likecut loose and be his best self.
And it's the, this is the number onehip hop video of all time for a reason.

(01:25:52):
it truly maybe belongs in the CriterionCollection just as its own little thing.
Just to give a quick on-ramp incase someone did go, oh, okay.
Now I need to knowabout Hype Williams too.
Okay, well that's the person responsiblefor getting jiggy with it and No Scrubs
and Gold Digger, the Kanye West songbefore everything went totally downhill.

(01:26:16):
Uh, there like, I mean, even justthose three off the top, they're
just like, I remembered every singleone of them visually, immediately.
And those are just like, youknow, some of the highlights.
And by the way, it's not even the craziestMissy video to support this album.
She's got a whole thingwhere she's mega man.
on, that's for socket to me, right.

(01:26:38):
there's a video for Hit Himwith a he, which I'd never seen.
And there's a video I thinkfor, what's the fourth one?
Beat Me 9 1 1.
Is there a video for that one?
I feel like, and like two ofthose I'd never seen, but I
knew the weird Mega Man one.
'cause I, it looked like now itlooks like the Gmail logo, but it's

(01:26:59):
Megaman and the M is for Missy.
and in another world the rainvideo could have never happened.
And I think the Socket Tomi videowould've been just as iconic if it
had had the space because it has thesame holy shit factor as the rain.
And it's like a distant second incultural memory, a very distant second.

(01:27:21):
But I don't want that to getlost in the conversation.
People like we've mentioned a numberof times, people talked about the, the
importance of the visuals accompanyingthese videos are bonkers and they're
all worth a watch on a big tv.
Video for, so to me, feels like theyreused that same computer generated,
sound stage and turned it around.

(01:27:43):
And that's where LincolnPark filmed in the end.
It is just all like 1990s tron went wrong,level things on some distant sandy planet.
but yeah, it's good
It it, but it almost ha it's likea low-fi version of that though.
It's got a bit of the Space Ghost thing

(01:28:05):
where like they, they re, they reuselike Liam Lynch level 3D animation
and they know how absurd it is andyou can see it in their faces when
she and Brad are running away from it.
I mean, it's just like, it'sso funny, but it's so good.
'cause it's like, it's not trying to beserious and it's not trying to be funny.

(01:28:26):
They're just having fun andyou want to have fun with 'em.
It's an absurd premise.
And one of the things that artists canteach us to be better in our own lives
about is like, if you're gonna do a bit,do a bit all the way with both feet.
And if Missy does one thing, it'slike whatever the bit is, I'm sticking
with it beginning to end, and then I'mgonna do a totally different bit later.

(01:28:51):
In a case that's not incrediblyclear that that was always going to
lead to a trajectory of her alwaysbeing this incredible, First of
all, two have lived a life whereMichelle Obama would say about you.
Thank you for not just sharing your giftwith the world, but for being an advocate
for so many people out there, especiallyyoung girls who are still figuring

(01:29:11):
out how to make their voices heard.
Like you don't do that.
Just releasing a few good songs.
You live an entire fully fleshed outlife where people can see you inside
of it, doing something like that.
Michelle Obama's not out there just,uh, throwing out compliments to hip hop
artists as far as I know, but like to haveseen that be said about someone's life.

(01:29:33):
And then at the same time, just in asuper surface level, cheap and hilarious
Missy Elliot moment, like of course sheis still to this day as capable as she
ever was with this because, so in 2008she was diagnosed with Graves' Disease,

(01:29:53):
and put her career on hold to dealwith that from a health perspective.
Uh, and then sort of like the resurfacingfrom that at least as thought of
popularly, uh, was 2015 where she did thefunniest thing you could do in 20 25, 10
years early, which is upstage Katy Perryat her own Super Bowl halftime show,

(01:30:15):
uh, to the degree that we all rememberit exactly like that in just like.
Incredible performers still at thatpoint, but like reminding everybody
of just how iconic and memorableso many of her songs were and how
inimitable her style and like productioncombination continues to be to this day.

(01:30:37):
A whole lot of peoplehave learned from her.
We've got a whole lot of interestingpeople these days, Dolce among them,
like we've got our own version ofreally cool stuff going on in 2025.
But not a single one of thosepeople are in fact, Missy Elliot.
Uh, and neither do they occupythe space she would occupy where
she's still going strong now.

(01:30:58):
And that's, I mean, I knowpeople can do math, but this
record came out 30 years ago.
Yeah,
not only does the freshness of itstill hit, which is incredible, but
like knowing that the person whomade that is still on that trajectory
and could very well be producingwhatever it is you'd like to produce,
uh, is inspiring to say the least.

(01:31:22):
I. It was so struck by the revelationthat this big tour, she just went on
with her old friend, Busta Rhimes openingwas her first ever headlining tour and
she was playing and selling out arenas.
And my first instinct is to belike, well, that's the world.
Just catching up with thebrilliance of Missy Elliot.

(01:31:45):
You don't understand this, butyour kids are gonna love it.
Like no people have lovedMissy Elliot the whole time.
That was the first thing we saidon this episode was we get it, but
we've maybe taken it for granted.
So if anything, I guess I love thatshe's giving the world space to like
reabsorb and appreciate on a deeperlevel the joy that she's given us.

(01:32:08):
There's nothing about her reemergencethat has felt like I need you
to remember how great I am.
It's once again, like, I would like tobe with you in celebration of the joy of
music, which I think partly comes from theperson she is partly comes from like the
pure hip hop spirit, eighties origin ofhip hop in Brooklyn, New York type spirit.

(01:32:32):
Seeing her play Coachella and people belike, this crowd doesn't deserve Missy.
The world doesn't deserve Missy.
It doesn't matter toher one way or another.
Just like getting to beback out doing the thing.
Sharing the joy, not hating on anybodyis so evident and it's, it's an energy
that I think we could all learn from.

(01:32:54):
We could stand to remember and renewourselves again and again and again.
I mean, you don't even havethe abstract this too much.
She, in the Coachella event thatyou are talking about, she came out
dressed as a fucking Transformer's car.
Like it, nothing has changed.
The vibe is still the same.

(01:33:15):
Oh, shit, we're gonna have fun.
This is gonna be funny.
It's gonna be good at the sametime, but like, nothing's for real.
Nothing serious In arguably themost serious times we've ever
been in at the same musical event.
Um, where kneecap is now at risk ofnever being allowed back into America,

(01:33:36):
after using music as a form of protest,which is, anyway, see all of our
previous episodes for that discussion.
but just like to have that sameenergy in this moment where it's
like, I'm sure that she could be.
A really serious artist inthis moment if she chose to be.
'cause she knows how to express herself.
And yet that's noteverybody's role all the time.

(01:34:00):
Some people need to use theirart in a particular way.
And then for Missy Elliot, what it'sbeen the whole time is like, I don't
know man, but everybody's welcome.
We're gonna do some funny shit.
Whatever you're wearing is good.
We are chill.
We're good to go.
Join up.
Let's have fun.
Let's balance whatever we're outta here.
And like, distinct from what we discussedin the Black Mall Super Rainbow episode,

(01:34:22):
you know, the ability to use music tomaybe dissociate a little bit wisely.
This one, I feel like is a good exampleof like, music will bring you back in.
Uh, there are times where it's serious andwe don't need to take any of that away.
But there's also moments where musicjust invites you back in and reminds
you that there's a whole lot of peoplewho are wrapped up in all this moment.

(01:34:43):
And we can experience that stuff together.
And, uh, you know, maybe, maybesave the serious statement for
somebody else or for another day.
I'm with that.
So where do we take that energy from here?
My first stop for myself and otherpeople prone to taking things
too seriously is to not think.
Things too seriously from here on out.

(01:35:06):
especially in regards to like, oh, okay,this album latched into me in a new way.
I'm pretty pumped about it.
Where should I go from here?
Again, personally don't overthink it.
You know, where I started going waslike, Lil Kim's not tonight, and
the Ladies Night remix, up jumps toBoogie, all the other stuff that felt
fun from the similar period of time.

(01:35:29):
That reminds me of I, I'm not surehow like localized the dazzle skate
experience was for me as someone whogrew up, grew up in Clayton County at
that particular time, but just likethe feeling of like, I'm 10 years old.
I'm not an adult.
I'm also not necessarilya little kid anymore.
I'm like, Experiencing culture for thefirst time, and I'm watching adults

(01:35:53):
have fun and like to me as opposedto a lot of other artists where
you can truly go on a serious musicendeavor kind of through history.
This one has felt better, thelooser I've gotten with everything.
Whatever I wanna listen to next goes.
Whatever feels right in this vibe works.

(01:36:14):
And if nothing else, it's reminded meof the types of mix CDs and playlists
I was trying to put together when MissyElliott was one of my favorite artists.
And remembering what littlebaby Cliff was trying to put
around, work it on my splatter.
CDR.
Oh man, it was gossip folks for me.

(01:36:37):
'cause anything that had a Luda guessverse was where he really shone.
man, that's so real.
It also occurs to me from what yousaid about dazzles and experiencing
culture in real time, that like whenpeople talk about old Atlanta and people
who aren't from here aren't concernedwith that whole bullshit conversation.

(01:36:57):
when people talk about old Atlanta,they're talking about the feeling of
what you just described, of nobody'spaying attention to us globally and
we're just gonna have a good time.
There was an effervescence and a lightnessto the sort of small town feel, and I feel

(01:37:19):
really spiritually connected to the purityof the moment in Virginia at this time
because they were doing it for the love.
And like even if no one cared, we had amoment for ourselves at the skating rinks
and the barbecues and all that stuff.
And like, sure, there was otherstuff that we weren't thinking about
culturally sociopolitically what,like all that's outside the door.

(01:37:43):
Some of that stuff is good, some ofthat stuff's really bad, but there
was an environment where we couldlike be free or we were just going
to choose to be free no matter what.
And it's hard to do that becauseof the nonstop sort of oppressions

(01:38:03):
that find their way into ourconsciousness now in ways that
didn't have mechanisms to do then.
But there is a real lesson to that.
no, we gotta, we gotta holdonto our freedom no matter what.
Maybe I should get roller skate.
Maybe that's a lesson in this.
Not the worst idea.
And personally, I'dlove to see that happen.

(01:38:26):
That would delight me and it wouldprobably finally convince me to change the
wallpaper on my phone to whatever pictureI could get of exactly that happening.
And my request would
Am I the wallpaper on your phone?
certainly would be, if I could getyou wearing shorts and roller skating.

(01:38:47):
Yeah.
Six foot four guy in roller skates.
Big tree.
Fall hard.
I do have a saved though phoneconfiguration that is you in an air and
tipping shirt flipping me off, whichI occasionally put on when I miss you.
So that is true.
That is absolutely a hundredpercent real and true.
love you, man.

(01:39:08):
it's just like a secret that's hidingon my phone that only maybe one,
one, maybe two people know about.
I.
If you get detained at theairport, change your phone.
Scream
I was literally
just thinking this, like one dayI'm gonna get detained and they're
gonna hold their finger down onit and go, hold on, what's this?
Incredible.
Well, that's a personwho hates you very much.

(01:39:30):
I can tell you for sure, officer.
that's, that's the equivalent ofRon Swanson at the park when they
ask him for his permit and hehands him the thing in crayon that
says, I can do whatever I want.
Yeah.
I'm the birth certificate thatsays I am 12 in green crayon.

(01:39:51):
yep.
That is my plan for, uh, when I travelinternationally here in about a month,
uh, I'm just gonna write in my notesapp, let me in, and then that's what
I'm gonna show them when, when theypull me up to one of the booths.
Uh, hopefully
It is gotta be the Eric Andre meme.
It's gotta be that.
Let me in.

(01:40:12):
I do love your point about where doyou go from here and it's just like,
find more moments like, oh, we reallyhave, when we die, or the moments or the
stories You picked out some good songs.
I'm probably gonna go back down arabbit Hole of being the Kid in 2000
that made a mega mix of Timbalandproduced songs because I like the way

(01:40:34):
the drums sounds, make me feel, thetexture that I can feel in my mouth.
There's is that Yo Chickis one of my favorite ones.
I think it's the remix that's actuallyMemphis Bleak, anchored and not a Missy
Showpiece, but she's on the remix.
and there's just a whole bunch ofTim songs where he like out cropped

(01:40:55):
and went on a generational run rightafter this from like 98 to oh one.
so I'll, I'll go down aTim Rabbit hole for sure.
And, and RIP to Magoo who has agreat appearance on this record, but
also There's a joy in just lookingfor Missy's fingerprints everywhere
in the joy of being yourself.
You mentioned Doche and she's probably thebest spiritual successor we have to Missy

(01:41:19):
right now, just kind of in every way.
And it's wonderful that she's havingher moment and I'm like getting a
little emotional thinking about hergetting emotional at the Grammys.
Very much of the same spirit,hard one fight for freedom.
You know, it's, it's hardto make it look easy.
I think Billie Eilish is anotherone where there's a ton of
Missy influence, especially thenon-gender performance bit of it.

(01:41:43):
And turning hip hop steelointo another thing entirely.
there's a lot of Missy and Rihannathought back to the anti episode and
the freedom of a, an album like Antihas Missy's fingerprints all over it,
and that's a decade on the formlessnessof Frank Ocean is like somewhere

(01:42:03):
between Missy Elliot and David Byrne.
CSA, who's currently selling out stadiums,is 1000% in the same vein as Missy.
And you watch one of them days with KikiPalmer and the humor that SSA brings
to the like, street and dance hall andsultry thing, not aggressively sexual,

(01:42:25):
not aggressively non-sexual or masculine.
SZA feels like a spiritualsuccessor to Missy in every way.
And it's just joyful to find all of thosepeople, I think about them and when I
see their face in my mind's eye, I seethem all smiling and they are carrying
on the lineage of Missy in that way.
And, all those people are just likea reminder with the music they put

(01:42:48):
in the world to just smile more,smile through the pain or something.
to do it around, people you love andmore importantly than anything, to
just keep doing it no matter what.
And joke ish things aside, yeah, smilethrough the pain, but like also, it's
always so hard to like acknowledgeeverything is difficult and hard.

(01:43:13):
All those things are real.
All those things are serious.
But also in the course of your life,like when you are doing on a regular
basis, the things that actuallymatch up with whatever it is your
heart wants to do on the inside.
And then you're around other peoplewho support you doing exactly what's

(01:43:35):
happening for you on the inside.
Like you will smile, you will experiencejoy in unpredictable places and moments
because it's never one or the other.
It's like it's never that.
It's never, ever that.
It's always both togetheroperating in some different

(01:43:56):
combination under the surface.
But like seeing the joy that you aretalking about and imagining them smiling,
like not everything will make you smile,but you should find yourself smiling.
Especially around the types ofpeople who support you the most.

(01:44:16):
I am not saying this to be sweet.
I cannot, Kyle and I cannot bearound each other without laughing.
It's just gonna happen the likeour pure existence as humans who
know each other and are friendstogether, it's fucking hilarious.
It'll never stop being funny.
It'll never make sense.
It'll never be normal or serious.
It'll always be funny and there willalways be something for us to laugh about.

(01:44:39):
And like, if you find yourself going areally long period of time without finding
yourself smiling, try to do somethingnew or try to change your context.
One or the other is maybe gonnabring this out, but like something
about thinking about super duly.
The record from 1997 has reminded me thatlike acts of joy aren't just intentional

(01:45:01):
things that we do knowingly, despitethe awfulness that we look at right in
front of us, but is also just like anatural and organic consequence of doing
the things that connect us to reality.
And the people who want to take us toplaces where we're experiencing more
connectivity like that will draw out joy.

(01:45:22):
You'll find yourself smiling andyou'll find yourself probably goofing
around with trash bags in front of afish islands at some point, and then
probably posting it to your stories.
the right now image in my head is whenI'm on TikTok, sometimes I'll come
across a live of Timbaland sitting inhis studio still at however many years

(01:45:44):
old he is now, however many platinumplaque he has still going, send me your
music and let me listen to it live.
And it's like him and T-Painin a category of their own.
Still being as big a fan of musicas they ever were, the day they
were born, the day they decidedto sing a song for the first time.

(01:46:06):
And like Missy's still co-signingartists, two people sampled,
she's a bitch, Cardi B and Bia.
And people were like, thatshouldn't have been a thing.
And she hopped in the middleof it and said, it's all love.
They can both rap.
It's great.
I love it.
I'm here for it.
No, Hayden made a big thing of it.
Missy was on that flying a ball songev, everything that's just, yeah,

(01:46:29):
everything that's just new and upfrontand joyful about the new generations.
She's immediately connected into.
Yeah.
And that's the thought that Ithink I'm left with on all this.
In a world where it's so easy to getstuck on what it shouldn't be, how
it shouldn't go, how I wish thingswere different is like not to be

(01:46:50):
the like, well just, it takes fewermuscles to smile than to frown.
Or like what if you justweren't unhappy anymore?
But there is something in like ifyou're really stuck right now and you
just can't get out of it the same way,if your body really hurts, somebody

(01:47:11):
would tell you to just get up, getsunshine on your face before 9:00 AM.
Walk your neighborhood.
Just do that for 15 minutesand then try again tomorrow.
every difference in yourlife starts with one choice.
Missy and Tim present you witha great guide for a choice.
Just find, find a way to make a choicetoday that's going to give you joy and

(01:47:36):
so much will radiate outward from that.
So much possibility, so much creativity,so much connection and community and
like maybe the world will suck lesswith every little choice you make
to not be affected by the world,but to affect it and God bless them
for their consistency in helpingus to remember that over the years.

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Episode 65: Missy Elliott's "Supa Dupa Fly"

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