"Gimme a pig’s foot and a bottle o’ beer" demanded blueswoman Bessie Smith in song. Missy Elliott always seemed a Bessie Smith kind of woman – large in size, talent and appetite for life. So when ‘Work It’ first emerged on the Internet it seemed marvellously louche – a vision of sexual abundance in which Missy demands "Go downtown and eat it like a vulture… See my ass go ba-dom-pa-domp-domp".
Now it transpires thatMissy’s become more of a celery stick and glass of Evian type of person, the sex in ‘Work It’ presumably to be fitted in between treadmill sessions. Fortunately Missy’s musical talents haven’t gone the way of her booty. She just seems to have lost some of her… Missyness.
Alex Needham
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