The two sides of music that formed Missy Elliott’s formative years

Missy Elliott wouldn’t be the trailblazing rapper she is at present with out being uncovered to a wide range of completely different artists throughout her youth. Because of her mom and father, she listened to a mixture of R&B and gospel music, laying down the inspiration for her to go on to realize platinum albums and chart-topping songs.

The Virginia native appeared on legendary producer Rick Rubin’s Damaged Report podcast in 2022, throughout which she opened up concerning the music she listened to as a younger woman. “My father would play Marvin Gaye, Prince, Michael [Jackson], then go to Men at Work,” she mentioned. “I remember ‘Whip It’ (by Devo), Grace Jones, and all that stuff. It was R&B on one side and gospel on the other side.”

Missy Elliott revealed she learned lyrical content, love, heartache and social commentary from her father’s R&B affect, whereas choosing up concord by listening to her mom’s gospel music. “I truly had the best of both worlds listening to both,” she mentioned. “I would stand in the mirror and pretend that I was at an award show with Janet and Michael, thanking Madonna for letting me write her new song.”

Regardless of fond reminiscences of music throughout her youthful days, Missy Elliott skilled a troublesome childhood. Throughout her episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, she opened up about being sexually abused by her 16-year-old cousin when she was simply eight years outdated.

“Each day he wanted me to come to the house after school,” she mentioned. “It became sexual, which, for me at eight years old, I had no clue what that was, but I knew something was wrong. Being molested… it don’t disappear. You remember it as if it was yesterday.” She additionally witnessed her mom being abused by her father; when she was 14, she noticed him pull out a loaded pistol. “Missy saw that the fight was just beyond measures,” her mom mentioned. “My husband said, ‘This is it, I’m gonna kill you. It’s over!’ I was so tired of being beaten over and over I just said, ‘Fine, just do it.’”

Missy added, “He pulled the gun out in front of me. I was screaming, ‘Daddy, please don’t kill my mother!’” Her uncle, who was residing subsequent door on the time, intervened and stopped the incident, which she described because the “scariest time” in her life.

Her mother and father, who got here from a spot like Virginia with a wealthy musical historical past, undoubtedly helped form Missy Elliott, with everyone from Pharrell and Timbaland to D’Angelo and Ella Fitzgerald representing the state. “When you talk about game-changing states, Virginia has to be on the top of that list,” she instructed Essence. “We have so much talent that have gone on to become successful. It’s not just Missy, Timbaland and Pharrell, there’s Pusha T, and so many others.”

She continued, “We always say there’s something in the water; that’s our big saying. To this day I haven’t figured out what that ‘thing’ is. For me, I felt like we were in that middle space. A lot of people don’t know that Virginia is actually a Southern state. You had New York, you had the Midwest, and the West coast, and we were kind of in a place where we would get things a bit late, so we just started creating our own sound.”

It’s simple to overlook simply how impactful Missy Elliot was on the explosion of hip-hop, however it’s also simple to overlook how hip-hop was wildly influenced by the music that got here earlier than. Elliott is proof that the style is as wealthy and textured as some other.

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