Missy Elliott: The Real Queen of the South

As a featured performer on VH1’s Hip-Hop Honors, Missy Elliott throws down during a tribute to Timbaland. She’s also been popping up on the popular reality show “What Chilli Wants.” But where
has she been for the last five years? SoulSummer examines the musical
life of Miss E.

It’s been thirteen years since the futuristic sound of Portsmouth, Virginia native Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott’s debut Supa Dupa Fly changed the sound of Black music in 1997. With the release of her first single “The Rain,” Missy seemingly became an “overnight sensation.”

Yet, contrary to what many fans might’ve known at the time, Melissa Arnette Elliott (born July 1, 1971) had put in much work behind the scenes before becoming a visible success, and eventually a five-time
Grammy winner. “Since day one I’ve always did the kind of music that I
wanted to do,” Missy recalls. “Of course, when I told my mother that I
was going to be a superstar, she thought that I was crazy. She wanted
me to join the army or the navy, like my father.”

However, the teenager who had grown up worshipping Michael Jackson had different plans.

“I met Timbaland in 1988 soon after his group SBI (Surrounded By Idiots) with Magoo and Pharrell had broken up,” she says. She had formed a group called Fayze with two other girls and recruited Tim as
Mosely as their producer. “We tried to get Teddy Riley’s attention, but
he wasn’t checkin’ for us.”

Nevertheless, after a chance meeting with Donald “DeVante Swing” DeGrate of the bad boy soul quartet Jodeci in 1992, she and Tim (and the group, whom DeVante renamed Sista) were
invited to join his budding production team Swing Mob in Rochester, New
York. Jodeci was working on the follow-up to their platinum-selling
debut Forever My Lady, an album that would be titled Diary of a Mad Band.

Serving as the Jodeci’s main songwriter and producer, DeVante was like a ’90s Sly Stone, full of musical genius and hedonistic desires.

“Their stay in Rochester was simultaneously a scary and a magical time,” recalls studio engineer Jimmy Douglass. “DeVante had all of these talented kids living in this house: Timbaland, Ginuwine, Missy,
the group Sista, Magoo, Playa and Tweet. He had all this talent living
under one roof and if he had treated them better, DeVante would have
owned the world.”