Day 419: Missy Elliott – Under Construction
I don’t think I’ve actually listened to an album by Missy Elliott, I mainly remember hearing her stuff when I was growing up with MTV but I’ve never taken the time to properly listen to her stuff. I had a specific hankering to listen to something that’s by a woman and not necessarily singing, so it felt like the perfect occasion to listen to a legend who I just don’t know enough about.
Album cover courtesy of The Goldmind Inc.
Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott, or Melissa Arnette Elliott, is a rapper, singer, songwriter and producer from Portsmouth, Virginia, who started off her musical career as a part of an R&B group called Sista. They recorded one album, which was written primarily by Missy Elliott and co-produced by Timbaland, but it was shelved after their first and only single didn’t do too well. After they disbanded, Missy Elliott started writing and producing songs with Timbaland for other artists, most notably Aaliyah.
She left the record label that she’d been on with Sista and started her own, called The Goldmind Inc., and started releasing solo albums as an independent artist. Under Construction was released in 2002 as her fourth studio album, earning her Grammy nominations for Best Rap Album and Album of the Year.
First of all, I love the concept of starting an album with a little spoken section where you talk about what you’ll do with the album. She says her view on life changed after Aaliyah’s death, and she’s working on herself and becoming better, hence the title of the album. She also sets the tone for what else she will be rapping about: she’s sick of the hatred and animosity within the hip hop industry, wanting her peers to go back to their roots and get to a place of unity.
I’ve been missing out by not listening to any Missy Elliott, I had this on while I was cooking and it made it immensely more enjoyable. The songs are impeccably produced and she brings a point of view that I love hearing, there wasn’t a single song where I wasn’t hanging on her every word. She’s just as comfortable musing about themes of mortality, relationship and the state of the hip hop industry as she is being laugh-out-loud funny and sexually outspoken, and the result of that is a record that effortlessly mixes the more serious subjects with the lighter themes.
The list of features is also stacked, there’s the musing of the golden age of hip hop with Jay-Z on "Back in the Day” and the duet about not wanting to go out and wanting to stay at home with your man with Beyonce on "Nothing Out There for Me," along with songs with other artists like Method Man, Ludacris and 50 Cent. But it would be just as good without any of them, they’re a nice bonus, but she’s so luminous that it could probably be her rapping over complete silence by herself and I’d still be entertained.
Sometimes with older hip hop albums I have to pretend that I don’t hear the parts where they espouse their views on women in order to actually enjoy the music, but not here. The album is unabashedly feminine, which was so refreshing. I loved this, Missy Elliott is extremely cool and Under Construction is a 9/10.