Speaker 1: Welcome to Rolling Stones five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast
Speaker 1: based on Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list.
Speaker 2: I'm Britney Spanis.
Speaker 3: And I'm Rob Sheffield and we are here to shed
Speaker 3: light on the greatest songs ever made and discover what
Speaker 3: makes them so great.
Speaker 2: So big one, big one this.
Speaker 3: Week all time favorite.
Speaker 1: Both of us and I mean, one of the best
Speaker 1: songwriting production duos in all of music history.
Speaker 2: Worked on this song. Today.
Speaker 1: We are going to talk about Missy Elliott's get Your
Speaker 1: Freak on the I mean absolutely transcendent song that placed
Speaker 1: four sixty six on the two thousand and four and
Speaker 1: twenty ten lists and jumped all the way to number
Speaker 1: eight on the twenty twenty one list. It's one of
Speaker 1: three Missy songs on the list. Work It came in
Speaker 1: at number fifty six, and the Rain Super Dupa Fly
Speaker 1: came in at number four fifty three. And the song
Speaker 1: was written and produced by Missy and Timbaland, one of
Speaker 1: the again one of the greatest combinations, one of the
Speaker 1: greatest duos in songwriting history, and they have had a
Speaker 1: long running just collaborative partnership and friendship and just continue
Speaker 1: to make really avant garde and experimental music, as Get
Speaker 1: your Freak On is exemplary of absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean there's no way you would hear any five
Speaker 3: second snippet of this song and not think two thoughts simultaneously.
Speaker 3: This is Missy and Timbaland, and second, what planet is
Speaker 3: this coming from? They always had such a completely innovative,
Speaker 3: original sound that sounded like nothing else, even when everybody
Speaker 3: was trying to imitate what they did a couple of
Speaker 3: years earlier.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a level of weirdness that literally only Missy
Speaker 1: can get away with performing. You know, It's like Missy
Speaker 1: can only do this so effectively and so perfectly where
Speaker 1: she herself is i mean just completely always futuristic, always
Speaker 1: kind of weigh hundreds of thousands of years ahead of
Speaker 1: whatever's going on in pop music, and can get away
Speaker 1: with I mean, this was her third album.
Speaker 2: This was Missy so addictive.
Speaker 1: The fact that it still sounds like this could be
Speaker 1: you know, people would kill for this to be like
Speaker 1: the first time that you ever heard them.
Speaker 3: Yes, and that this is just one song from one
Speaker 3: album in one of the greatest runs in pop music history. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Missy and Timbaland just always had that unique chemistry and
Speaker 3: as soon as people around the world heard it, people
Speaker 3: became obsessed. I mean, you don't forget when you heard
Speaker 3: them for the first time. The song I voted for
Speaker 3: on my list was The Rain Super Dupa Fly Yes,
Speaker 3: which that was the beginning. That was their first hit
Speaker 3: and they had so much further to go and so
Speaker 3: much further to evolve. But really, I mean, whichever their
Speaker 3: songs you pick, it's just an absolutely unique run.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this song is just I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so many different levels and layers of the parts that
Speaker 1: make it so great and cool and eclectic. I mean
Speaker 1: there's the bongra type of beat that's on there, and
Speaker 1: there's someone speaking in Japanese and either end of the song,
Speaker 1: and there's like a German kind of new age artist
Speaker 1: sampled on it. You know, it's just like this very
Speaker 1: like worldly song. They're able to encompass all this and
Speaker 1: still make it so distinctly Missy. It doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: Missy stepping into anything else, but what Missy does, like,
Speaker 1: it's it's so purely her.
Speaker 3: Yes, And every time you think this song couldn't get
Speaker 3: any weirder, it gets weirder.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They just both keep throwing in like bizarre sonic things.
Speaker 3: I really like the part where like Missy Hawks Aligi. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's like who else, literally who else on the
Speaker 3: planet would try this and make it rock so hard
Speaker 3: and make it so undeniable.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think the thing that for both of them
Speaker 1: that works so well and what I think, of course,
Speaker 1: kind of keeps them sort of united and so with
Speaker 1: such great respect for each other, but also to have
Speaker 1: so much fun and so much freedom in.
Speaker 2: The studio together.
Speaker 1: It's just the fact they both love hip hop that
Speaker 1: makes you dance, like they really have such an appreciation
Speaker 1: for that above all else, Like it matters so much
Speaker 1: to them to make kind of this like really classic
Speaker 1: hip hop that's meant.
Speaker 2: To be in tribute to the great bee.
Speaker 1: Boys and hip hop dancers of the previous eras that
Speaker 1: inspired them so much as kids and inspired them so
Speaker 1: much as as artists. And you can feel that in
Speaker 1: everything that they have made together.
Speaker 3: It's really true and that they came from. Talk about
Speaker 3: a place that you know, qualified as the edge of
Speaker 3: nowhere is considered by the music world in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 3: but Portsmouth, Virginia, which even by Virginia standards is a
Speaker 3: really isolated place. Yeah, and for them it was very
Speaker 3: much like the John Lennon Paul McCartney story, that they're
Speaker 3: from this town that is completely ignored by the rest
Speaker 3: of the world, not just the music world, a very
Speaker 3: isolated place that where they find each other and they
Speaker 3: have a unique sonic chemistry from the very beginning, and
Speaker 3: they have this formula and people around the world were like,
Speaker 3: what is the Liverpool sound? What is it about the
Speaker 3: Mercy River. It's like, no, it wasn't Liverpool, It's just
Speaker 3: John and Paul found each other and created something, and
Speaker 3: very much that way with Portsmouth and the Missy Timberland sound,
Speaker 3: and considering how much great music each of them has
Speaker 3: made individually and in collaboration with other artists, but always
Speaker 3: something so beautiful about the way that they always saved
Speaker 3: their best tricks for each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they definitely they push each other so
Speaker 1: much further, and they always push whoever they're working with
Speaker 1: so much further, which is so excellent to see. Like
Speaker 1: the way that, you know, thinking about their joint production
Speaker 1: and work on Alia's music, you know, the fact what
Speaker 1: they were able to kind of accomplish with Aliyah is
Speaker 1: so I mean that sort of trio together is so
Speaker 1: beautiful and wonderful and kind of you know, I wish
Speaker 1: for you, which we had gotten like a million more
Speaker 1: albums from them, because I think that was such a
Speaker 1: great kind of combination of sort of this R and
Speaker 1: B budding princess and like these kind of these two
Speaker 1: absolutely avant garde producers and writers who were able to
Speaker 1: see so much of what put so much potential that
Speaker 1: she had.
Speaker 3: Unbelievable that the collaboration between them was so unique and
Speaker 3: so perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I remember when One in Million came out, and it's
Speaker 3: weird because people thought that the Alias story had already
Speaker 3: happened and was over. Everybody thought, well, it's great that
Speaker 3: Aliah is making another album and starting over, And it
Speaker 3: was so shocking for people to hear One in a Million.
Speaker 3: Nobody knew who Missing Timberland were. They were just the
Speaker 3: names and the credits, and it was such a striking
Speaker 3: and other worldly sound.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there are individual kind of you know, Timbaland
Speaker 1: working with Nelly Fortado.
Speaker 2: And justin Timberlake and kind of what.
Speaker 1: He was able to bring out of these two pop
Speaker 1: stars and in this moment. I mean, we've talked about
Speaker 1: Max Martin in a previous episode, and then this kind
Speaker 1: of like polar opposite type of production for pop music
Speaker 1: comes up and kind of like challenges but also pushes
Speaker 1: a lot of that conversation forward. And thinking about just
Speaker 1: kind of this like very very futuristic R and B
Speaker 1: and kind of dance music and kind of spacey kind
Speaker 1: of beats and melodies that he brought to both those
Speaker 1: artists who were doing vastly different things prior to working
Speaker 1: with him, is like pretty extraordinary. What he did, like
Speaker 1: with all those albums, like thinking specifically with like Loose
Speaker 1: Otherhado and feature Sex Love Sounds with Justin even though
Speaker 1: of course he worked on Unjustified a bit too, but
Speaker 1: kind of the.
Speaker 2: Further they pushed was great.
Speaker 1: And of course with get Your Freak On of that
Speaker 1: made already the two thousand and four list again a
Speaker 1: song that people already just upon its release knew it
Speaker 1: was great and ahead of the time, ahead of its time,
Speaker 1: and you know, just kind of already a brilliant enough
Speaker 1: song to even crack the list within gear or two
Speaker 1: of it coming.
Speaker 2: Out and being on there. Yes, what do you think
Speaker 2: it was?
Speaker 1: About Get Your Freak On to immediately make the list
Speaker 1: and then also jump up so high into the.
Speaker 2: Top ten the way it did on the newest version.
Speaker 3: I think it's come to stand for all the brilliant
Speaker 3: stuff that they've done. Honestly, it's weird that in a
Speaker 3: pull like this there's always going to be vote splitting
Speaker 3: for somebody like Missy, who has so many songs, the
Speaker 3: proportion of songs that are classics, like, it's weird that
Speaker 3: there's not a lot of mid Missy songs. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: especially when Get Your Freak one came out, people were
Speaker 3: used to the idea that, Okay, it's summer, so that
Speaker 3: means Missy's going to have a new record and it's
Speaker 3: going to be the song of the summer. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: that was the fourth summer in a row, when people
Speaker 3: were just used to that. People just assumed that was
Speaker 3: going to happen at that point. It's really weird to
Speaker 3: even try to imagine what summers and pop music were
Speaker 3: like before Missy and Timberland started making records. Because super
Speaker 3: Dup a Fly was definitely Okay, this is not just
Speaker 3: the song of the summer, this is how a summer
Speaker 3: actually sounds. And this is how it's always going to
Speaker 3: be from now on, and it's wild that forget your
Speaker 3: freak on. That was one where people said, Okay, it's
Speaker 3: going to happen. Let's see what they have this year
Speaker 3: and get your freak on. Such a even by Missy's
Speaker 3: previous standards, such an outlandish, outrageous, almost daring you to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: you're going a little far this time. We really don't
Speaker 3: need all this stuff in one song. And it's so excessive,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't feel excessive. It's got a real minimal
Speaker 3: aspect with just you know, that throb all the way through,
Speaker 3: the bongera sound that it uses, which was so innovative.
Speaker 3: This is before it really took off in two thousandspop.
Speaker 3: But that Punjabi sound where there's the tombe hook that
Speaker 3: and then the tabla rhythm and that for the most part,
Speaker 3: those are the instruments you hear, and there's all these
Speaker 3: crazy ideas and tricks and effects that they throw on
Speaker 3: top of it, but that is the pulse of the
Speaker 3: song all the way through, and so it feels really
Speaker 3: minimal yet super expansive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I feel like the way that Missy
Speaker 1: and Tim in particular very much like loop their beats
Speaker 1: and samples into things. Is like it really gets under
Speaker 1: your skin in the best way possible, Like it's in
Speaker 1: such like specific and get your freak on thinking about
Speaker 1: just like the way that they do the reverse part
Speaker 1: and work it, which was my vote actually for the
Speaker 1: list I had work on my ballot. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of is like that super addictive, kind of
Speaker 1: perfect dancy thing that they really accomplish in it. That's
Speaker 1: like so just like so far superior and so far advanced,
Speaker 1: and what they did with that in particular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember when We Get Your preak On came
Speaker 3: out in very early summer two thousand and one, and
Speaker 3: I was writing about it in a Rolling Stone, and I
Speaker 3: was bluntly saying, like, what did we do for fun
Speaker 3: in the summer before these two came along? And it's
Speaker 3: really wild the rain super Dupa Fly. That's a huge
Speaker 3: sentimental fave for me. We can argue all day about
Speaker 3: what their absolute peak moment of genius and inventiveness is,
Speaker 3: but I was in Virginia at that time, and it
Speaker 3: was wild that everybody I interviewed for the next few
Speaker 3: years as soon as like I mentioned that I was
Speaker 3: from Virginia. All they wanted to talk about was Missy
Speaker 3: and Timbaland. I remember I was interviewing Massive Attack around
Speaker 3: the time that their mezzanine cowp album came out. They're
Speaker 3: classic from early ninety eight, and the guy's in Massive
Speaker 3: Attack very wary with journalists, always very guarded. When I
Speaker 3: mentioned that I was from Virginia, they had all these questions,
Speaker 3: and they were asking me things like what did people
Speaker 3: eat there, and like what's the weather? Like we had
Speaker 3: all these specific questions because they were so obsessed with
Speaker 3: the idea. Everybody around the world was obsessed with Portsmouth, Virginia. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it was really kind of incredible to have the
Speaker 3: two most visionary artists in pop music come from the
Speaker 3: same town. They find each other, and they create the
Speaker 3: sound that completely radicalizes pop music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's crazy how much you
Speaker 1: can make a case for even I mean not even
Speaker 1: just for the three messy songs that end up making
Speaker 1: the list, but for really any Missy Sinkhole that like
Speaker 1: even from even from so Addictive. I'm like one minute
Speaker 1: mat it's such like a perfect song too, like such
Speaker 1: a great just like again, like very weird kind of
Speaker 1: like mid tempo rap song from them, Like it's just
Speaker 1: really great.
Speaker 2: I love that song so much.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you can make a case for almost any
Speaker 1: Missy Missy tim collaboration to kind of to be in
Speaker 1: the top ten of this type of list, or to
Speaker 1: even make the list at all. But I feel like
Speaker 1: any of those three could have very much made the
Speaker 1: top ten.
Speaker 3: Of this list absolutely well. And you mentioned that Work
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 2: Your favorite, Yeah, I love Work.
Speaker 1: I think it has some of my favorite Missy lines
Speaker 1: on there. I mean, like the halle Berry poster line
Speaker 1: is one that always comes to mind, the reverse part.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's just like some of her
Speaker 1: best lyricism in it, Like she always has such a
Speaker 1: great flow, and she always has such a good, great
Speaker 1: way of playing with words and sounds and like just
Speaker 1: like saying kind of like kind of witty and like
Speaker 1: kind of.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous things and songs.
Speaker 1: I feel like Work it is just like some of
Speaker 1: her greatest bars that she's ever had. And I love
Speaker 1: that so much of the most memorable lines.
Speaker 3: Is under construction. Your favorite Missy album?
Speaker 1: Honestly, No, I think it's probably it's probably stupid super Fly.
Speaker 1: I think it's that one because I love socket to
Speaker 1: me so much, and I do, I really do love
Speaker 1: The Rain, And there's just like so much like young
Speaker 1: hungriness in it that I or in that album that
Speaker 1: I really love.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, and the Rain. It's it's a song that
Speaker 3: you know, we've all heard a million times and it's
Speaker 3: still so shocking. There's so much open space in it,
Speaker 3: the way you hear that swamp kind of sound, you
Speaker 3: hear frogs and crickets. It's funny because I think of
Speaker 3: Under Construction as her greatest full on album. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: yet super Dupi Flies probably the one. It's one of
Speaker 3: the albums I've listened to most in my life in
Speaker 3: terms of sheer quantity of listens. It's one that I've
Speaker 3: just listened to front to back, over and over and
Speaker 3: over again. I never hear it without being shocked and
Speaker 3: surprised by stuff in it. Yeah, but Get your Freak
Speaker 3: On is a song like that that you can hear
Speaker 3: it thousands of times over the years and you still wonder,
Speaker 3: how did this even happen?
Speaker 2: How does one even get here?
Speaker 1: You know, like creatively, and it's perfect, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like no one else can can do that and kind
Speaker 1: of set off set a new bar of like what
Speaker 1: pop music can be, what hip hop music can be.
Speaker 3: It's funny. It's something that's such a weird. Factor of
Speaker 3: where they came from, when they can came from, is
Speaker 3: that hip hop was so focused on two cities all
Speaker 3: through the nineties. There was New York and LA and
Speaker 3: there was a real resistance, especially in New York but
Speaker 3: also in LA to hip hop from anywhere else. And
Speaker 3: so even like Outcast with songs like Elevator and everything,
Speaker 3: they couldn't get any airplay in New York because that
Speaker 3: was seen as a niche. You know, Southern stuff was
Speaker 3: seen as a niche. So for Missy and Tim to
Speaker 3: come out of a place that, even within the South
Speaker 3: is a really isolated and overlooked place with a sound
Speaker 3: that was so universal and almost anybody who heard it
Speaker 3: got their minds blown. It really I think of as
Speaker 3: that's what killed off the whole regional thing, the regional
Speaker 3: biases that kept artists from Atlanta and Houston and other
Speaker 3: places from being heard on that same universal level. And
Speaker 3: it's really weird how much it sort of opened the
Speaker 3: frontiers for pop music all over the board. It's a
Speaker 3: all that whenever Missy goes back and makes new music,
Speaker 3: it's always still brilliant. It's funny that she's never repeated
Speaker 3: her old formulas, even when people would love that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, when she goes back to the studio, it's
Speaker 3: not to do better versions of things she's done before
Speaker 3: or different versions of things she's done before. So it's well,
Speaker 3: even like the last ten years of being a Missy
Speaker 3: fan have been such a trip.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it feels also like everyone is very
Speaker 1: much thinking about the ways to show greater appreciation for
Speaker 1: the work that she's done, the work that her and
Speaker 1: Timberland have done together. And I mean I think more
Speaker 1: and more props will be given to Timberland as a
Speaker 1: producer in the future, I hope, because I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of great pop production he's done that deserves
Speaker 1: a lot of And also like having a protege like
Speaker 1: Danger who worked on Blackout. I mean, that's like an
Speaker 1: incredible thread that in pop music that we simply must
Speaker 1: get into. But like, but I think, you know, I
Speaker 1: think there's been a lot of you know, Missy finally
Speaker 1: getting a video Vanguard at the VMA's which was well overdue.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's someone who completely reinvented the wheel of
Speaker 1: what a music video canon should be. And again not
Speaker 1: afraid to get weird, not afraid to like, you know,
Speaker 1: let just like that, get your freak on flag flat.
Speaker 2: You know, she's open to it.
Speaker 3: Honestly, everything about Missy she's clearly someone who doesn't have
Speaker 3: any driving need to be a celebrity. She when she
Speaker 3: wants to work, it's always as an artist. But she
Speaker 3: doesn't do you know, she's not a red carpet, She's
Speaker 3: not sort of selling herself as a brand. She's got
Speaker 3: musical ideas, and when she has moved to make music,
Speaker 3: it's always unmistakably her. But it's wild that she just
Speaker 3: decided kind of early on that she didn't want to
Speaker 3: be a mainstream celebrity type. She wanted to be just
Speaker 3: that weird artist at all times.
Speaker 1: And you could feel so much kind of respect and
Speaker 1: awe that so many legends pay Missy. I mean, thinking
Speaker 1: about the way that people like Jant Jackson and Maria
Speaker 1: Carrie love Missy Elliott and love her music and constantly
Speaker 1: speak about her.
Speaker 3: Just to pick an obvious rock example, but you can't
Speaker 3: imagine Radiohead's trajectory without the inspiration that they took from
Speaker 3: Missy and from Timberland, but that they go from you know,
Speaker 3: okay computer to kid a and amnesiac and hail to
Speaker 3: the thief, that whole evolution that they did. You know,
Speaker 3: like they'd be the first to say that Missy was
Speaker 3: a huge inspiration to them. It's really wild to see
Speaker 3: what a worldwide for she was in terms of artists
Speaker 3: who didn't necessarily sound like her, but they just wanted
Speaker 3: to be as cool and as free and as radically
Speaker 3: open musically as she was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're all better for it.
Speaker 1: And I feel we're going to keep hearing and seeing
Speaker 1: that even more now that we have a bunch of
Speaker 1: a bunch of kids who grew up on her making
Speaker 1: music now and pop and wrapping all over.
Speaker 3: We're all still catching up with like where Missy was
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five years and up next we have Missy Elliott.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. This is Rob from Rolling Stone
Speaker 3: and thanks for talking today.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 4: Rob.
Speaker 3: It is such an honor and such a thrill to
Speaker 3: talk to. You're one of my all time heroes.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you, thank you, I thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: How did you and Timberland have this kind of music chemistry?
Speaker 3: I mean, when did you two start making your music together.
Speaker 4: Tim and I started making our music together when we
Speaker 4: were in high school and he went to another high school.
Speaker 4: I was at another high school and I met Magool,
Speaker 4: which was tim rapping partner, and Magool introduced me. He said,
Speaker 4: you know, I want you to meet my friend Tim.
Speaker 4: And Tim at the time was a DJ. He wasn't
Speaker 4: even a producer. We went to his house and he
Speaker 4: would just he had like a little keyboard and he
Speaker 4: would just play on it, like not even with producing
Speaker 4: in mind. That's how you you know when God is
Speaker 4: in effect and the lot the stars aligned because his
Speaker 4: goal wasn't to be a producer at the time, and
Speaker 4: so he would get on your keyboard and the cassio
Speaker 4: used to have like a little sounds, animal sounds and stuff,
Speaker 4: and I just remember thinking like, Wow, he's making this
Speaker 4: sound hot with this little toy keyboard. And so he
Speaker 4: would start he would do that, or because he was
Speaker 4: a DJ, he would have like instrumental records and he
Speaker 4: would play the instrumental and I just started like rapping
Speaker 4: and singing, and then I just started going to his
Speaker 4: house every other day, if not every day, until his
Speaker 4: dad was like, look, I got to drive this bus
Speaker 4: to work. His dad was like a long haul driver
Speaker 4: or something, and we would be in there making so
Speaker 4: much noise to the wee hours of the morning. He
Speaker 4: would play instrumentals and then I would start writing, and
Speaker 4: I was just like, you need to produce, like you
Speaker 4: have something, and so he started doing beats. And you know,
Speaker 4: back then, we didn't have the technology that we have now.
Speaker 4: We used to record on a cassette tape and then
Speaker 4: put another cassette in and bounce the vocals. It was
Speaker 4: some weird way we used to do it. So by
Speaker 4: the time you heard it, it sounded muffled, but you know,
Speaker 4: because you didn't bounce these vocals from tape to tape.
Speaker 4: So now it's it's sound muffled. But we would ride
Speaker 4: around in a car and be grooving like, oh my god.
Speaker 4: We thought it sound amazing, but it was a mess.
Speaker 4: But it was enough to get people attention. Though, I
Speaker 4: will say that amazing.
Speaker 3: And yet what you were doing then people are still
Speaker 3: trying to catch up now, is what you were doing
Speaker 3: two years ago.
Speaker 4: A lot of the tracks that we did were always
Speaker 4: say hypnotic when I think get your freak on just
Speaker 4: ad no, no, no, no, no, it is this hypnotic
Speaker 4: is like, yeah, those records were very special, and people
Speaker 4: always say we want to hear a record like and
Speaker 4: they'll name something from back then. But what you have
Speaker 4: to understand is that it was a time and a
Speaker 4: space that we were in and those moments I don't
Speaker 4: feel like can be recreated. Like I said, they were
Speaker 4: my fun times and I don't have fun times anymore,
Speaker 4: but I wouldn't trade it for nothing in the world.
Speaker 4: Tim has always been a genius that he didn't even know.
Speaker 2: Some people like.
Speaker 4: To deal with people who go to school for this
Speaker 4: very technical.
Speaker 2: About what they do.
Speaker 4: But sometimes it's great to be raw because you're going
Speaker 4: off of this feels right instead of technically.
Speaker 2: What is right.
Speaker 4: And so it's funny to hear because we were, you know,
Speaker 4: one of those ones that were doing the I don't
Speaker 4: know how you can describe it, but it's like a
Speaker 4: jump style rap the beats to where the catenance. You
Speaker 4: hadn't heard the catenance like Kaki kat Ki cat cat
Speaker 4: a kick do that multiple, you know, multiple hits back
Speaker 4: to back like that, you know or hearing sound effects
Speaker 4: and in the music that that hadn't been done and
Speaker 4: before we even allowed the world when we came out
Speaker 4: and I was just like, hey, Tim, like let's give them,
Speaker 4: especially when we will work on the list stuff. I
Speaker 4: was like, let's give let's do give the world what
Speaker 4: we've been doing, because we've been doing this kind of
Speaker 4: music for years. It's just that the world hadn't heard it.
Speaker 4: And I'm just like, why sit on you know sounds
Speaker 4: where I watched him make a snare out of a
Speaker 4: ceiling fan and it's like, yo, let's give them this,
Speaker 4: it's gonna sound different, and it did.
Speaker 3: They basically they had to beg you to make a
Speaker 3: Missy record.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I totally just wanted to have a label.
Speaker 4: And that's how super Dupi fly cas because they said, okay,
Speaker 4: well you will give you a label if you give
Speaker 4: us one album.
Speaker 2: And that went on and on and.
Speaker 3: On amazing And you said you made this album in
Speaker 3: two weeks.
Speaker 4: In two weeks? Yes, yeah, how.
Speaker 3: How is that even possible?
Speaker 4: The way man Tom was able to make an album
Speaker 4: in two weeks because, like I said, we before then
Speaker 4: we were used to doing five six records a day, Basically,
Speaker 4: we were doing what we were used to doing and
Speaker 4: we didn't know anything was to come of it from that.
Speaker 2: We just okay, let's go in and knock this out.
Speaker 4: So we were just doing what we do five six
Speaker 4: records and for you know it, it was, it was
Speaker 4: done and amount of time.
Speaker 3: You made everybody else sound lazy. So thankful to you
Speaker 3: for making this great album, an album that really just
Speaker 3: reinvented music for the nineties. Nobody had heard anything like
Speaker 3: this before.
Speaker 4: First of all, we didn't listen to the radio, and
Speaker 4: we didn't watch TV, and which played a big part
Speaker 4: of the sounds that we have because because we were
Speaker 4: TV watches and at the time, we didn't hear, and
Speaker 4: so by us not hearing, we didn't mimic what was out.
Speaker 4: So when we came we didn't know what was hot
Speaker 4: because we have been just listening to what we had
Speaker 4: been doing. And so that made us unafraid and unapologetic
Speaker 4: because we just didn't know that, okay, y'all doing something different.
Speaker 4: Everybody else is doing this and you know, and making
Speaker 4: us fear that hey, this what we're doing might be
Speaker 4: too left. We didn't have that thought because we didn't
Speaker 4: hear nor see.
Speaker 3: Well, it's like you moved everybody else to the left
Speaker 3: because you were so ahead of everybody else.
Speaker 4: Oh man, yeah, we were on some futuristic stuff for sure, Yes, yes, yes, yes, amazing.
Speaker 3: And all these years later it doesn't sound dated. So
Speaker 3: much stuff from the nineties now it sounds dated. It
Speaker 3: sounds good, but it sounds old, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Man, It's like I said, it was special, and
Speaker 4: I think it was special because it was coming from
Speaker 4: a pure place. There was no expectation on that album.
Speaker 2: It was very.
Speaker 4: Natural because it was what we were accustomed to doing anyway,
Speaker 4: and because there wasn't an album before that that we
Speaker 4: were trying to compete with. It came from a pure
Speaker 4: place where it's innocent. It's like, hey, let's just do music.
Speaker 2: We love music.
Speaker 4: The second album is what became hard because the first
Speaker 4: album was so much of a big success. Then it
Speaker 4: was like, okay, what do we do now, Like how
Speaker 4: we're gonna beat out these records? But the first album,
Speaker 4: you're not comparing it to anything else.
Speaker 3: It was like nobody heard anything like it before. I mean,
Speaker 3: I love that second album. I think that's a classic too.
Speaker 4: The funny thing with the second album that was the
Speaker 4: hardest album for me, and I didn't I didn't appreciate
Speaker 4: it at first. Now when I look back, I'm like,
Speaker 4: this is probably one of the most artsy album because
Speaker 4: it was so theatrical, three violins and horns and all
Speaker 4: that stuff, totally different and on a kind of like
Speaker 4: dark edged kind of sound, which was totally different from
Speaker 4: the first album. But yeah, that second album was stressful
Speaker 4: because of that first album, No mind You, I was
Speaker 4: never supposed to.
Speaker 2: Even get to a second out.
Speaker 4: But hey, you know, I thank God. I most definitely
Speaker 4: don't want to be regretful, because I'm not. I am
Speaker 4: so thankful. I always believe that if it happens for you,
Speaker 4: that means it was supposed to. You know, God blessed
Speaker 4: me with the talent and that's why it continued to
Speaker 4: go on and on.
Speaker 3: Well, I want to thank you for what you did
Speaker 3: with that talent and what you did with your genius,
Speaker 3: because that super Dupa Flyings Out an album that changed
Speaker 3: my life and it changed the way music has sounded
Speaker 3: ever since.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I'm I'm always humbly grateful to you know,
Speaker 4: to hear that, because I know somebody asked me earlier
Speaker 4: this year. I can't remember they they I remember them
Speaker 4: saying like, when did you feel like you had made
Speaker 4: it or people had accepted your whole sound, look and video?
Speaker 4: And I said, to be honest, just now, wow taking
Speaker 4: a chance to well, I never.
Speaker 2: Took the chance to think about it.
Speaker 4: We never took the time to think, oh, they get
Speaker 4: it now, love me now like or any of those things.
Speaker 4: And now it's probably last year, and this year is
Speaker 4: now I feel like I made it.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad you can hear the
Speaker 3: world like accepting that now. Because boy, even at the
Speaker 3: time when Super Dupe but Reply came out, people were
Speaker 3: starved for something like you and for a performer like you.
Speaker 3: I want to thank you for talking today about this album,
Speaker 3: but I gotta thank you just for making the album.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: That was the completely amazing Missy Elliott being her genius self,
Speaker 3: We are very blessed to have her as part of
Speaker 3: our conversation about her genius work.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five hundred
Speaker 1: Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone and iHeartMedia. Written hosted by me, Britney Spanos and
Speaker 1: Rob Sheffield Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale and
Speaker 1: Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon, with music supervision
Speaker 1: by Eric Zeiler. Thanks for watching and thanks for listening.