[a]Missy Elliott[/a] roolz, muthafucka. In ’97, her debut ‘Supa Dupa Fly’ single-handedly saved US hip-hop-R&B from meandering down mimsy swing-beat boulevard and reinvented it as a colossus in creativity: all staccato-beat grooves and hair-coiling tunes of peerless class.
In her videos, she made hip-hop funny again. And she had, and retains, the best female voice hip-hop has known. Bee-itch. For the last 18 months, the ubiquitous magpies of black American hip-hop-pop loved her so much they nicked, entirely, her and producer [a]Timbaland[/a]’s boilingly-revered ‘beat’ and in 1999 the pair are hopping mad.
); ‘All In My Grill’, a delicious R&B smoother which guffaws at loser blokes with no [I]”dough”[/I].
Much of the rest, however, is the sound of [a]Timbaland[/a] trying desperately not to sound like [a]Timbaland[/a], his beat-replacement based on the sound of wrathful violas, again and again, like a man with his once-limitless talents tied into a severe knot in the middle of his eyebrows. This is a tragedy. As is its length; by the 66th minute you’ll yearn for ‘Supa Dupa…’‘s soul-melting whistlability. Still, the pair’s huge creative giftage towers above the tired saps of black US pop and hollers, “Come up witcha own creativity”. Just like they have, once again.