Missy Elliott - This Is Not A Test! (November 25, 2003)

Fifteen years ago today, Missy “No Longer Misdemeanor” Elliott released her fifth solo album, This Is Not A Test!, on Goldmine, her vanity label distributed by Elektra Records. It came roughly one year and one week after her previous effort, 2002’s Under Construction, which featured the monster hit “Work It”, which still gets a significant amount of radio airplay to this day. Sonically, it acts as a spiritual sequel to Under Construction, as the old-school vibes adopted by Elliott and her producers (mostly Timothy “Timbaland” Mosely, but also Craig Brockman and Nisan Stewart as needed) for that project are upgraded here to reflect her views on what hip hop and R&B was like in 2003.

The weird thing is that an actual sequel, Under Construction Part II, dropped one week prior, the series continued by Timbaland and his rap partner Magoo. Now that album fucking tanked, mostly because it wasn’t very good, but This Is Not A Test! became Missy’s lowest-selling effort to date. Was this just a coincidence? Did Timbo inadvertently siphon away Missy’s listeners, turning them off from his sound to such a degree that they chose to ignore Elliott’s work?

Shrug?

Missy Elliott - Under Construction (November 12, 2002)

It’s been three fucking years since Missy “I Dropped the ‘Misdemeanor’ As It Wasn’t On-Brand Anymore” Elliott made her surprise appearance during Katy Perry’s halftime show at Super Bowl XLIX. At the time, you two likely saw one of two types of responses to her performance: “Holy shit, we need a new Missy Elliott album ASAP” (which was my reaction), or “Who is this?” (the more popular take, sadly). One thing you didn’t see is anyone claiming that she sucked: everyone likes at least three Missy Elliott songs, even if you’re too young to know who Missy Elliott is.

Sadly, the waves of press her cameo initiated didn’t translate into a new album, although it wasn't because of a lack of trying: Melissa dropped a handful of singles and cameo appearances. So we sit here, three years later, wondering just what went wrong. But we already know the answer: the musical landscape is far different today than it was back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, back when Missy and her partner-in-crime, producer Timbaland, changed the way radio sounded multiple times during the height of their respective careers. Regardless of how you personally feel about Missy and Timbaland as artists, you have to admit that is quite the feat: you can’t do what Missy and Timbo did multiple times and still have it be considered accidental.

Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott - Miss E... So Addictive (May 15, 2001)

I've figured it out, people.  You two have glanced at the album cover above and have already decided that you could give a shit about the subject of today's post.  In fact, you two may have dismissed it entirely based on the fact that today's subject is a woman, and absolutely nobody has requested that I write about any female artist in the past few years, aside from all of that bullshit about Iggy Azalea because people want to see me trash her work, which would actually require me to want to listen to her work, and I just don't have the time or the patience for that, folks.  I have too much on my plate, I treasure my ears, I haven't really liked any of her other stuff so what's the point, Charli XCX is the only good thing about "Fancy", blah blah blah, other excuses.  

But the subject of today's post isn't someone who's buying into the pop music world of today via three-dollar beats and the audio equivalent of blackface: no, instead, today I'm writing about a woman who legitimately changed the way pop music sounded in the 1990's and into the new milennium.  And I mean she changed it multiple times: Melissa "Missy 'Misdemeanor'" Elliott and her partner in crime, producer-slash-sometimes-rapper Tim "Timbaland" Mosely, are largely responsible for the risks taken on radio airwaves over the past eighteen or so years that you bastards merely take for granted today.

Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott - Da Real World (June 22, 1999)

Before I get into this year's version of HHID's Ladies Week, I'm going to spend a couple of days revisiting two of the artists who were featured the first time around, just to catch up with what they've been doing.

When I was a kid, I used to unwrap various flavors of Starburst candies, put them in my mouth, and drink cold water immediately afterward.  Somehow, my mind treated this as an approximation of cheap fruit juice, as the liquid would absorb some of the flavor from the spun sugar.  In my young mind, I knew this was just an imitation, an impersonation of actual juice, but it was good enough for when I was hanging out with my friends at the arcade and only had access to a water fountain.  Besides, have you ever eaten more than one Starburst flavor at once?  That shit is golden, son!

In 1999, the radio airwaves were filled with approximations of cheap fruit juice, all of which tried to capture the flavor that Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott and Timothy "Timbaland" Mosely had slowly developed over many years of slow roasting over a low flame of computer-generated noise and music industry neglect.  Missy's first solo album, Supa Dupa Fly, was released in 1997 after having made a name for herself as a go-to songwriter and as an alien visitor from another galaxy, one that uses Hefty garbage bags as sources of comfort and warmth, and also as a place to store food for the winter.  Supa Dupa Fly was a collaborative effort between Missy and Timbaland, both of whom were young artists on the rise in a musical genre that was in dire need of a swift kick in the ass.

As was to be expected when something different is a success, everybody and their mother Xeroxed the shit out of Missy and Timbaland's unique hip hop and R&B formula, changing all radio stations into one long club mix, complete with sound bites of crying babies, crickets, and samples of old school R&B songs that your parents loved.  This was the most obvious reaction that the music industry was going to have: it's much easier to simply stick with the same idea over and over again, as creativity is typically seen as a four-letter word, and Missy and Timbaland were cursing up a fucking storm as if they hit their collective thumbs with a hammer.

Missy's follow-up, Da Real World, was the duo's response to an industry that was obviously just ripping them off at this point, at least in their eyes, and instead of finding imitation to be the most sincere form of flattery, they decided to get upset about it.  Missy started off with the general blueprint of Supa Dupa Fly (some love songs, some rap hybrids, mostly general weirdness as seen through a mainstream kaleidoscope), but took it to a much darker place, at least beat-wise, as Timbo decided that everything on Da Real World needed to sound like The Cure filtered through The Faint with a side of Mantronix and a Grace Jones chaser.  Which is probably too much effort for a project on which the star attraction spends most of the program complaining about "beat biters".  At least she had a couple of her friends to keep her company: aside from Timbaland riding shotgun, Missy invited her girls Aaliyah (R.I.P.), Lil' Mo, and Nicole Wray to sing the hooks that she didn't want anything to do with.  (Ginuwine, Magoo, and the group Playa, all a part of Timbaland's collective, are all mysteriously absent.)

Da Real World was generally well-received, in that Missy and Timbaland successfully took their sound to another level, but it didn't sell as well as its predecessor, and its singles aren't as well-remembered as "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" and "Sock It 2 Me".  But at the same time,  Da Real World can be seen as more of a hip hop sampler than a cohesive album, since it features cameos from some of the bigger names in Missy's Rolodex.

1. MYSTERIOUS (INTRO)

Well, somebody's obviously watched The Matrix one too many times. This rap album intro would have been much more impressive had they somehow convinced Laurence Fishburne to reprise his role as Morpheus, but since they didn't, this comes off as self-important horseshit.

2. BEAT BITERS (FEAT. TIMBALAND)

Missy and Timbaland kick off the musical portion of Da Real World with a diatribe against all of the folks who ripped off their style when it was proven to be successful. This is the entertainment industry; what the fuck did you expect? Everybody rips each other off all the fucking time. Timmy provides a couple of different beats for Melissa to spit over, and to be honest, she doesn't work in favor of her own argument. The way I see it now, if someone else can step in and do a better Missy Elliott impression than the original recipe herself, then let them, because you're clearly not doing much with your own persona.

3. BUSA RHYME (FEAT. EMINEM & GINA THOMPSON)

Back when Slim Shady was fresh in everybody's mind (as opposed to the overexposed pop star he is today) (yeah, I called him a fucking pop star, what of it?), Eminem used nearly every opportunity handed to him to prove that he could spit alongside anybody, so when Missy and Timbaland came a-calling (with a song originally given the creatively unimaginative title of “Funky White Boy”), he jumped at the chance. Some of his lyrics were censored for consumption by Missy's core audience (let's just say he takes Biggie's “Gimme The Loot” one step further: the lyrics printed within the liner notes even hilariously pretend that the controversial bars never existed in the first place), but while Marshall sounds okay (as he was prone to do back then), Missy fucks everything up with her embarrassing hook and nonsensical verses. Marshall actually recorded a third verse (over a completely different instrumental than the two Timmy uses on here) that was trimmed for time or some shit: Eminem stans can easily find it online by searching for “Tylenol Island”, if they're into that sort of thing, but you didn't hear it from me.

4. ALL N MY GRILL (FEAT. BIG BOI & NICOLE WRAY)

Contains quite possibly one of the laziest Timbaland productions he has ever had a hand in: some strings are looped over a drum machine that only occasionally switches up the pace. Missy sticks with the singing this time around (rendering the vocal presence of Nicole Wray superfluous at best), but her lyrics aren't that great: she may be a popular songwriter, but most of her words revolve around wanting a hot guy to pay her bills and buy her shit, a fact that most critics tend to gloss over. She seems to be in love with the concept of being in love. Anyway, OutKast's Big Boi appears as an afterthought, but while it was good to hear him over some Timbaland beats, the fact that another version of this song exists with French rapper MC Solaar (not the guy who ruined the late Guru's rap career) in Big Boi's place only lends credence to the “afterthought” theory. Although, more realistically, it was probably a “hey, let's sell some records in France” business move, so there you go.

5. DANGEROUS MOUTHS (FEAT. REDMAN)

The title makes no real sense: my understanding is that this track was originally going to feature both Reggie and Danja Mowf, former apprentice of Missy and one of the members of (Mad) Skillz's crew The Supafriendz, who were down with Timbo at the time; he somehow got screwed out of his cameo, but Missy kept the title anyway, which is a pretty bitchy move. Well, at least Redman sounds pretty good over Tim Mosely's work, but then again, Reggie can rhyme over damn near any fucking beat out there: how many rappers can you say that about?

6. HOT BOYZ (FEAT. LIL' MO)

For non-Missy fans, this probably isn't the version of the song that you're most familiar with. (I'll expand on that later on.) Timbaland's otherworldly halting beat still sounds pretty good today, but Melissa squanders it by singing about her ideal man: someone with money, a big dick “fun toy”, and a glock on him at all times. The fact that she resorts to damn near begging to be with this hypothetical “hot boy” completely negates the message of female empowerment prevalent throughout Da Real World. Oh well, this version of the song sucks anyway.

7. YOU DON'T KNOW (FEAT. LIL' MO & TIMBALAND)

I guess Lil' Mo tries to exert her authority over her man, who was fucking around with Missy on the side (is that a fair trade-off? Discuss below), as they spend almost this entire song arguing with each other, curiously editing out the word “fuck” while leaving everything else in, including the word “clit”, which caught me off guard, considering just how mainstream Missy Elliott is. Timbaland plays the instigator with some truly inane ad-libs. This track only picks up when Missy and Lil' Mo (who sounds a lot like Timbaland's other protege Mocha, but it isn't her) spit some venomous bars at each other.

8. MR. DJ (FEAT. LADY SAW, LIL' MO, & TIMBALAND)

Timbaland breaks out his childhood Speak 'N Spell for a portion of this track, but its contribution is so much of an intrusion that Texas Instruments should have demanded a co-writing credit. I thought this track wasn't very good until Lady Saw stepped into the booth, not because she turned everything around by sounding great or anything, but because she brings something new to Da Real World's dinner party. I was getting sick of the “meatloaf surprise” that the host kept bragging about, anyway.

9. CHECKIN' FOR YOU (FEAT. LIL' KIM)

I like how Lil' Kim references Mary J. Blige for no reason during this interlude-slash-song, as if she would be caught dead anywhere near Da Real World. Thanks to Kimberly's rant, Missy's vocals take up less than a minute of this track, but I have to say, she didn't actually sound bad. This is possibly because the track ends before one can gather up enough energy to hit the 'skip' button.

10. STICKIN' CHICKENS (FEAT. AALIYAH & DA BRAT)

Proof positive that Missy and Timbaland could convince the late Aaliyah to do absolutely anything: she appears on a song called “Stickin' Chickens”. And you know what? I actually liked Timbo's simplistic beat on here. Missy and Da Brat work with the subject matter just fine (for a hint as to what the track is about, please refer to the song's title), but Aaliyah sounds out of place and embarrassed: it's almost as if she was the one who got fucked over, and Melissa and Da Brat jumped to her defense. Not terrible, but also not that good.

11. SMOOTH CHICK

Meh.

12. WE DID IT

The chorus sounds like something Missy would have written for Ginuwine, who may have declined after realizing that it sounds very similar to his far-superior “What's The Difference?”, the Godzilla-sampling track also produced by Timbaland. This song is all sorts of wack. Are the kids still using that word? Wack?

13. THROW YOUR HANDS UP (INTERLUDE) (FEAT. LIL' KIM)

Lil' Kimberly returns to Da Real World in order to justify a woman's right to refer to herself as a “bitch”. Which makes the title of the skit even more inappropriate.

14. SHE'S A BITCH

The first single (and formerly the title track, before Missy came to her senses), which was, in hindsight, a mistake: after the pleasant overtones from Supa Dupa Fly, hearing Melissa as a pissed-off foulmouthed robot didn't sit so well with her fans, especially when the chorus had to be censored on both the radio and MTV. Here's the kicker, though: this is actually a pretty good song. Missy actually sounds like a more than decent rapper: perhaps the faster pace of the instrumental caused her to step her lyrical flow up. Timmy's shuffling beat lends the darker subject matter a brief rainbow of happiness in a torrential downpour of despair.

15. U CAN'T RESIST (FEAT. JUVENILE & B.G.)

Let's look at this song within the context of 1999: Cash Money Records was a fairly successful subsidiary of Universal Records (who still reap the rewards from their early signing of Lil' Wayne back when he was fourteen or some shit), and the Hot Boys (Weezy, Turk, Juvenile, and B.G.) were among the hottest new artists out at the time. So, in an effort to pander to as wide an audience as possible, Missy and Timbaland reached out to them, and Juvenile and B.G. Were the only ones that returned their phone call. As a result, this South-leaning instrumental features a more-than-decent B.G. (rhyming over what is probably the most expensive beat he will ever spit over) and a lackluster Juvenile alongside two Missy verses that aren't as embarrassing as they should be. It isn't that good of a song, but I've heard worse.

16. CRAZY FEELINGS (FEAT. BEYONCE KNOWLES)

Had this song been released today, it would have been a much bigger deal, but when Da Real World dropped, Beyonce Knowles was only the lead singer of Destiny's Child who could possibly break away for a solo career at some point, but nobody was sure just how far she could go. This isn't the worst song ever recorded, but it didn't do any favors for Missy or Mrs. Shawn Carter-Knowles. In fact, I found this to be sleep-inducing. At least this song was cheaper than Ambien. (My understanding is that there is an alternate version of this song floating around somewhere that includes the rest of Destiny's Child. It's hard to imagine a world in which Beyonce's abilities were put into question, isn't it?)

17. RELIGIOUS BLESSINGS (OUTRO)

And we're done.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Da Real World doesn't hold up at all over time. Missy Elliott and Timbaland resorted to their old tricks, covering up the illusion with the conceit of a “futuristic” concept (see: the reference to The Matrix during the intro, an idea that is immediately discarded). Minus the contributions of some of the bigger names on the guest list (and the complete absence of two of the biggest players in Missy and Timbo's regular acting troupe, Magoo and Ginuwine), this is the exact same album as Supa Dupa Fly, except the singles aren't nearly as catchy. The beats sound decent enough, but Missy's vocals (both sung and rhymed) are amateurish at best, and stretching her over seventeen tracks sounds more like a contractual obligation than a creative endeavor that someone would willingly listen to.

BUY OR BURN? I don't think any of you two care enough to do wither one, but if you're in the minority, a burn is more than sufficient. For two people who complain about people ripping off their style, Missy and Timbaland sure went out of their way to not give listeners anything fresh this time around.  Although if you look at the Amazon link below, this album would only set you back one shiny penny, so it's your call.

BEST TRACKS: “She's A Bitch”

B-SIDE TO TRACK DOWN: “HOT BOYZ (REMIX)" (FEAT. NAS, EVE, Q-TIP, & LIL' MO)

This is the version of the song that a video was shot for, and the logic behind that decision makes perfect sense: why not promote the shit out of a rap version of “Hot Boyz” that will spike the sales of the CD single, thereby possibly boosting the profits made by Da Real World? This track is infamous for containing A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip performing a hilariously out-of-character vulgar verse, but I always remember it for Nasir's opening bars: in the video, he refers to himself as “Nastradamus” (or, more accurately, “Nastradam”), but on the CD single he's right back to his “Escobar” persona, a bit of trivia I was always curious about. This is, by far, the superior version of “Hot Boyz”; I'll leave it to the two readers to decide whether that is because of Missy's now-limited involvement.

-Max

RELATED POSTS:

Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott - Supa Dupa Fly

Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott - Supa Dupa Fly (July 15, 1997)

Melissa Elliott's career had an inauspicious beginning: she was part of a female R&B group, Sista, who secured a record deal through Jodeci member DeVante Swing's imprint, Swing Mob, but never saw an actual album released. Nobody knows what happened to the other members of Sista (although I once asked one of them for more Splenda for the table, and she obliged begrudgingly), but this story isn't about them.

Missy Elliott, as she would be called later, utilized her clout with DeVante Swing to set up some of her friends with the Mob, among them gifted superproducer Tim Mosely, or Timbaland, as he is better known today. After the whole deal (and possibly friendship) with Jodeci fell apart, Timmy blazed the trail as the producer of R&B singer Ginuwine's debut album, and Missy made her abilities known as a singer/songwriter, although the majority of her actual singing was in the backup department, for other, more established female singers. Occasionally Missy would score an actual guest appearance slot, but this was more for her rapping than her singing, although she can actually sing, unlike some of these folks out here.

Timbaland and Missy became the songwriter/production team of the moment in the late 1990's, creating hits for artists that would have otherwise disappeared off of the musical map, including 702, SWV, and, eventually, the late Aaliyah, with whom Tim and Missy's career would fucking explode. Timbaland's unusual, yet club-ready beats, combined with Missy's songwriting talents, resulted in so many hits that the duo would become highly sought after. Timbo, of course, later became one of the most popular producers on the fucking planet, retooling the sound of popular music whenever he felt like it, and Missy would become one of, if not the, most influential female in hip hop history (based on sheer creativity alone), but none of that could have happened without Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott's solo debut album, Supa Dupa Fly.

Funny, I had completely forgotten about that nickname of hers.

Although she was presented with multiple record deals, the most notable being from Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Records, a label with which she did a lot of hired help, Missy opted instead to take the label deal Eastwest put on the table. She recruited Timbo to man the boards exclusively, called in some favors from some of her previous collaborative efforts, and crafted a debut album that many critics claimed to be incredibly far ahead of its time. Indeed, none of it sounded anything close to what was on the radio at the time (unless you compared it to the other Timbaland/Missy songs that were slowly working their way into rotation), and its videos were also met with unanimous praise, proving that, even though music videos are ostensibly five-minute-long commercials for albums, they didn't all have to have the same look: video director Hype Williams also deserves some of the credit for that, as he was never really able to do the ridiculous bullshit he's so well known for now until he started working with Missy Elliott and Busta Rhymes, another pioneering artist who, coincidentally, appears on Supa Dupa Fly.

Supa Dupa Fly sold tons of copies and made media darlings out of Missy and Timbaland, who would release his own album later in 1997 with his steroid carrier Magoo. Her career was just getting started: after the release of this disc, she would go on to release many more albums, write with a lot more artists, win multiple Grammy awards, and live a charmed life.

Too bad her solo debut sounds so goddamn terrible. (Damn it, I did it again!)

1. BUSTA'S INTRO (FEAT BUSTA RHYMES)
Busta doesn't prove himself to be very useful on this rap album intro, but it at least makes one wonder why it took so goddamn long for Busta to get a Timbaland track for his own solo work. The beat sounds like a retread of SWV's "Can We", a Timbo-produced song that I happen to still like.

2. HIT 'EM WIT DA HEE (FEAT LIL KIM)
Does anybody else find it odd that you have to push your way past two rappers (the aforementioned Busta Rhymes and, on here, Lil Kim) before you can even hear Missy's voice? This song is pretty weak, and is not a good sequencing decision: there's no reason this should be the first actual song on here. However, I do like elements of Timbaland's beat, and I also recall liking the song's remix more, with its strangely dark video, bizarre metal horse, and floating objects. Missy also fails to actually explain what a "hee" is, which is incredibly frustrating.

3. SOCK IT 2 ME (FEAT DA BRAT)
Light years beyond what the first single "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" could properly prepare us for, and not just because the video clip for this track takes place on another planet (at least, I think it does: honestly, I don't remember anything about the video except for the color orange). The Delfonics's "Ready Or Not, Here I Come (Can't Hide From Love)" is put to pretty creative use, in my opinion: even Da Brat, a female rapper of no real consequence otherwise, sounds really good over this beat. Nice work, everybody.

4. THE RAIN (SUPA DUPA FLY)
Missy Elliott's first solo single, which sounds decent enough (Missy sounds awkward as shit, and her rhymes are far too simple for most hip hop freaks (I mean, seriously, "Beep beep, who got the keys to my Jeep? Vrooom....."? What the fuck is that shit?), but the beat is good), but the song's real contribution to the cause was its Hype Williams-directed video, which set expectations a bit too high for the artist involved (I'm sure Missy wakes up in the morning wishing she could just shoot a regular, run-of-the-mill music video in front of an abandoned project building at this point). The use of the chorus from the Ann Peebles hit "I Can't Stand The Rain" comes off as a bit lazy, though.

5. BEEP ME 911 (FEAT 702 & MAGOO)
This song doesn't get nearly as much attention as the rest of the album, but it was released as the third single. My guess is that its video wasn't as visually compelling as the others (having a video set in a dollhouse can do that to a song's chances at popularity). I've always liked this song, as it contains one of the most minimalist, unorthodox Timbaland electronica-tinged beats he's ever made (for Missy, anyway), and even Magoo's appearance can't ruin this awesome track.

6. THEY DON'T WANNA FUCK WIT ME (FEAT TIMBALAND)
Oddly, Supa Dupa Fly was front-loaded with its first four singles, which means a lot of listeners probably never made it past "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" (unless they were brave enough to sit through "Beep Me 911"). Tracks such as this one illustrate why those listeners may have had the right idea.

7. PASS DA BLUNT (FEAT TIMBALAND)
I'm pretty sure that Missy just called herself a golddigger on this song. Considering her persona and how she handles herself in the media, I wasn't expecting that type of shit from her. Oh well. This song isn't altogether bad, even though ripping off Musical Youth's "Pass The Dutchie" is hardly original.

8. BITE OUR STYLE (INTERLUDE)
This skit is similar in concept to whatever guest rapper on the Clipse's aborted debut Exclusive Audio Footage mentioned that "everyone" wanted to jump on to a Neptunes beat, and that was before the Neptunes even became popular. What is it with Virginia producers and rappers that causes them to snatch up all of the door prizes before the announcer even walks up to the podium and tells the contestants what kind of game they'll be playing? And the weird thing is, none of the artist I'm talking about (Missy, Timbaland, the Neptunes, the Clipse) were wrong: they would all become successful, and their early words would become profoundly prophetic. Huh.

9. FRIENDLY SKIES (FEAT GINUWINE)
Would have sounded better had Timbo felt confident enough that the listeners would recognize Ginuwine, his first artist and the reason Timbaland became a name-brand producer in the first place, without having to beat us over the head with a sound effect from their breakthrough hit "Pony" (a song which I still think sounds fucking terrible, like a frog burping into a microphone while some guy tries his best to sing around it).

10. BEST FRIENDS (FEAT AALIYAH)
A bland R&B track, save for the late Aaliyah's contribution, but then again, I've been a fan ever since the "Back & Forth"/marriage to R. Kelly days, so the song is upgraded to "alright". May she rest in peace.

11. DON'T BE COMMIN' (IN MY FACE)
Honestly, spellcheck should be a rapper's best friend, but it's hardly ever used. Anyway, years before Beyonce released her annoying hit "Irreplaceable", Missy crafted her own diatribe against men who take their significant others for granted. This song by itself is not great, but it's not terrible: it's certainly more vulgar (and, as such, more realistic) than "Irreplaceable", at least.

12. IZZY IZZY AAH
The hook on here is proof positive that Missy truly believed in the fact that, as long as the beat is good, she could spit whatever bullshit she wanted, and nobody would be the wiser, because it would sound good. The problem with this theory is that Missy was actually right: this isn't bad at all. Mind-numbingly stupid, yeah, but not bad.

13. WHY YOU HURT ME
Meh.

14. I'M TALKIN'
Yeah, but I'm not listenin'.

15. GETTAWAY (FEAT SPACE & NICOLE WRAY)
Timbaland does some interesting things with the beat, and the rhymes (provided by Space, apparently, although I could swear Missy's artist Mocha appeared on here, but she's not listed in the liner notes or online anywhere) actually sound like a rapper tried to write something hot, but the hook is pretty awful. Otherwise, this isn't bad, although the monologue Missy has toward the end of the track is boring, when she sings a slightly altered version of the hook she wrote for Aaliyah's "One In A Million" after rationalizing why she was going to sing it.

16. BUSTA'S OUTRO (FEAT BUSTA RHYMES)
No rapping here, but you can hear the distinct sound of a rap album outro sucking if you listen closely.

17. MISSY'S FINALE
Missy takes a crack at her own album outro, and sounds much more sincere and thankful than Busta Rhymes ever will.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Supa Dupa Fly is a mixed bag, with the needle pointing toward "avoid" more often than not. This freshman outing for Missy (and for Timbaland, who is just as much the star here as Missy is) was almost universally praised for the sound that it brought to hip hop and R&B, a sound that everybody else is just now starting to replicate (if you listen to the radio today, which I don't recommend, you'll hear songs by producers who were obviously inspired by this super duo), and for that alone, Missy and Timbo should feel honored. However, realistically, Supa Dupa Fly was the audio equivalent of the two masterminds working out their professional relationship, feeling each other out, and testing the general boundaries on both hip hop and music in general. And, as such, it comes up empty more often than not, especially when it comes to the lyrics, which are either generic-sounding (as it comes off on almost every R&B track) or terribly delivered (almost every single one of her rapped verses). Ultimately, a misfire (even in 1997, when I first bought it: I was one of those listeners that could never get past "Beep Me 911"), but one that shows giant fucking sparks of creativity.

BUY OR BURN? If you even consider yourself a minor fan of Timbaland's body of work, you may want to consider burning this one. Everyone else need not apply. You're not missing much of anything, regardless of what the magazine critics may tell you.

BEST TRACKS: "Beep Me 911"; "Sock It 2 Me"; "Izzy Izzy Ahh"

-Max

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Read related posts (more related to Timbaland than Missy, truthfully) by clicking here.