Missy Elliott: Digital Innovator

Published Sep 9, 2020, 1:36 AM

Let's take a little break from the depressing newscycle and talk about the iconic Missy Elliott and how she's been changing the digital game since the very beginning. 

Check out the video for The Rain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHcyJPTTn9w

“Supa Dupa Fly: Black Women as Cyborgs in Hiphop Videos" by Dr. Shaviro: http://www.shaviro.com/Othertexts/MissyKim.pdf

"Missy Elliott" with Margot and Richie Tenenbaum, Halloween 2008: https://www.tangoti.com/episode-12-missy-elliott-digital-innovator

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production of My Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget Todd and this is there Are No Girls on the Internet, Prince David Bowie Les Paul. When we think about the intersection of tech, innovation and music, it's not difficult to think about men who fit the bill, But what about all the female digital visionaries in their impact on music? Enter Melissa our Nett Elliott, also known as Missy Elliott. Okay, so some of you all might be thinking that maybe this whole episode is just an excuse for me to take a little break from the depressing news cycle and talk about my love of Missy Elliott, And you know what, You're not totally wrong, But Coral has not always gotten credit for the visionary that she is. Her work as a producer changed the landscape of music in ways that we can still here today, and her innovative music videos blend science fiction and afrofuturism to throw off outdated patriarchal chains of what it means to be a black woman. Now. We talk a lot about girl squads and feminism and music, but for Missy Elliott, that looks like working with other women in the music industry, amplifying their voices and acting as a creative collaborator with them. No Missy is known for her technical production prowess. Alongside her longtime creative collaborator Timberland, She's written and produced scores of songs for other artists, many of whom are women whose work she helped find mainstream success. Here's just a little taste of the music she's helped produced. Aaliyah One in a Million, Sierra one, two Steps, seven oh two, where my girls at Beyonce sign and a lot of people don't know a lot of the records I've written or produced, so that's a highlight for me as a woman. Elliott told The Associated Press. I always said if a man had done half the records that I've done, we would know all about it, and Missy is a right. It's almost hard for me to overstate the impact Missy Elliot's work has had on me personally, and she's actually one of the reasons I wanted to start this podcast at all. One day, I was thinking about all the different ways she shaped music and music videos and culture and the way music is made, and I thought, why aren't we constantly talking about Missy Elliott all the time. I was even Missy Elliott for Halloween when I was younger. Check the photo in the show description if you want to see evidence. Missy grew up in the South in a small town called Portsmouth, Virginia, and I'm from a small town Virginia too. We both grew up in the church, singing in church choirs. The summer of nine was a particularly hot and muggy one in Virginian My family had just moved to a new neighborhood and I didn't really know anyone. I still remember it so clearly. That July, the Pathfinder had just landed on Mars to explore whether or not life could really exist on that planet. I remember watching it on the news from the fourth of July. I spent a lot of that summer up in my room thinking about things like aliens and outer space and what the future looked like. Well, that and my other favorite pastime, which was watching music videos on MTV. That was also the same month when Miss Elliott dropped her debut album, Super Dupifly, and it sounded like something at once from Another Planet and the Future. It debuted at the number of three slot on the Billboard two hundred, the highest charting debut for any female rapper in history. Missy was just getting started, and she was already charting new territory. When I was young, it didn't really seem like there were that many ways to be a black woman. I loved the community of strong black women who raised me on church, candy and gospel music, but it didn't really match how I felt inside. No. I didn't know it at the time, but looking back, it had a lot to do with me coming in terms of being queer. I just felt like a weirdo, and I was always searching for permission that being a weirdo was okay. So whenever I saw a black person doing something different and new, I latched onto it immediately. I was obsessed with black weirdos like Grace, drones, and prints. I also liked any story that was about aliens having to blend in on Earth, and sometimes when I felt out of place, I'd pretend I was from another planet too. So the first time I saw the video for Missy Elliot's The Rain, my mind was blown. I had never seen anything like it, and I just remember thinking, is this person from outer space? Missy probably understands where I'm coming from. When she goes back and looks at her old videos, she thinks what was I on. Here's what she had to say about looking back on those videos in an interview. I know that was my smoke days, but I was like WHOA At the time when I was doing those videos, I didn't think much of it. I thought they were hot, but I didn't critique it or go into detail or say this is some next level ship. Take the iconic video for Missy Elliott's The Rain. There's a link to the video and the show description if you haven't seen it for a while. Her innovative visuals you science fiction and afro futurism to throw off the outdated, patriarchal chains of what it means to be a black woman. And even at fourteen, I picked up what Missy was putting down. Now, as an adult, I wanted to know more about her work and how it bit within this context. And it turns out I'm not the only one asking the deep questions when it comes to Missy Elliott. Hi. I'm Steve shabiro Um. There's a roy Professor of English at Wayne State University, on a scholar and I worked mostly on science fiction and music videos. Dr Shaviro says Missy's music just sounds like the future, and you can hear her influence in all the kinds of music today. The Chemical Brothers just came up with a new album and it's with videos her interesting and but it sounded like if this music could have made nineteen eighties. I mean, it's great music, but it could have been easily been made in nineteen because it's that kind of sound with Mrs Elliott. Even though she's doing her own sound, which recognizably r own temper nineties and early two thousand's, it seems in temporary at the same time, and that's partly because lots of other people are so influenced by her. I think that is something I love about Miss Elliot's music is that when you listen to it, it sounds like it could be written in nineteen eighty nine, ninety, and also it sounds like music that could come out today. And also it sounds like music from the future. You know, she's been quoted as talking about her how her style and her music is so futuristic, and I hear that so much in her music. You know, it's timeless and futuristic all at once. She and Timberland twenty years ago. We're experiending with you know, very odd, odd rhythms and with with things which pushed the edges that I mean, it's still damsable, but it pushes the edges of of what a groove is. It's the best way I can say it, and I'm not sure that that's I don't feel that that's adequate. That's sort of how I think about it. In his article super Dupifly Black Women as Cyborgs and hip Hop Videos, Shavera argues that her song The Rain is about her using sci Fi inspired cyborg visuals to subvert the patriarchy and what we think of as traditional black femininity. He writes, the videos thus raised the question about identity and otherness, and about power and control. They asked us to think about how we're being transformed as a result of our encounters with the new digital and virtual technologies. Or better, they raised the question of who we are as beings whose very embodiment is tied up with technological change, as well as the descriptions of gender and race. Even the song's main sample and People's classic N three hit I Can't Stand the Rain is a kind of subversion. And in the original song and his post breakup and heartbroken, plagued by the sound of the rain outside of her window, but in Missy's version, it's raining indoors and she's broken up with some guy before he can gumbera super flaw. I've been a miss Elliott fan my whole life, and this was something that weirdly had never occurred to me, that the her use of Anne People's sample of the rain actually subverts that because that original song that she samples is about a woman who you know, her man has left her and she's just the sound of the rain is just making her think about it. And Missy in that song uses the sample but completely subverts it and flips it on. It's on its head. You know, she's the one who's breaking up with the guy before he can dump here right and again. And you know, the way, as I think I said in the article, the way um the way the video works, it's only aning on the sound stage inside, while on the scenes outside it's like these hyper real colors, you know, green, blue, blue sky, green grass, and it's two thousand one Moneli in the background. So the fact that they have the rain indoors instead of outdoors. I think it's it's it's signifies in the in a real way. Let's take a quick break enter back. You probably already know that Missy Elliott is synonymous with iconic music videos. I probably spent hours in my room watching her trippy visuals when I was growing up. An iconic music video could make an artist. But these days, artists can get big without having a video at all, So labels don't really spend the money to produce them what they used to, and it's kind of a shame you don't even get to see them as an expression of an artist's vision anymore. Missy's visuals were all about being subversive. You know how she rocks that iconic black inflatable suit and helmet in the rain video. Shaveriro says it's a futuristic response to her being shut out of the music industry for daring to be a black woman who wasn't a size bore. This whole emphasis on women's standards of women beauty for for the male gays being you know, you know, slender and things like that, and she's violating this. But it's like that that plastic thing is both it's it's doing it's both emphasizing and concealing her body at the same time, which is like, I mean, other people noted how um some women musicians deliberately try to resist being you know, hyper sexualized by like wearing looser, baggy clothes and stuff like that. And there's a whole list. I mean, you can think about the early um TLC videos where they wore these baggy pants with like condoms on its decorations and stuff like that, which was smart and funny. I mean, but today's seen something like Billie Eilish, she just said to do the reason she were as its oversighted clothes because she doesn't want people to be completely objectifying her body, so miss reality it is, I mean, her career for whatever it is that she wanted to you know, she was doing production work for for Leah and many other artists and writing songs and stuff like that. She wanted to perform herself, but was told by people in the industry that she wasn't attractive enough to be a star. And so she's always faced faced that kind of thing, and and the way she's so it's a way of affirming herself and it's sort of doing two things at once because on the one hand, it is it's kind of loose or literally it's baggage and seems to be made out of plastic bags. So it's rather saying no, you can't just look at my curves and say and you objectify them. At the same time, it's emphasizing her physicality and her presence there. It makes her bigger, so it makes her fill up the screen. Wore, so it makes it forced you to. So it's sort of like doing these both things at the same time. I think, does that make sense? That makes so much sense. Here's how Missy described it on a v H one's Behind the Music. We came up with this idea of being in a big plastic garbage bag. Basically, I said, I'm gonna show them. I'm gonna make a record and it's gonna be big, and I'm gonna be big too, and I mean literally, I'm gonna stay my size and have a big record. And that's that. Now, this actually makes a lot of sense. Missy was shut out of making a public facing music video because of her looks in Raven Simone, then the adorable child star of the Cosby show debut or hit single, That's what Little Girls Are Made Of. It was written and produced by Missy, and Missy also performs a rap on it, but in the music video, a thinner and lighter skinned actress lip syncs Missy's part. Missy recalls that she was intentionally left out of the video shoot because she didn't fit the image they were looking for. Nobody even told me they shot the video. I heard late it was like, you didn't quite fit the image that we were looking forward. I was like, what I trying to say? Unfat? It doesn't immediately like, oh they they you known the big girls. I said every curse word. I was distraught and l Magazine in ten. She said the rejection was so painful she almost gave up on being a star, but now she's embraced having her own brand of black femininity, telling the New York Daily News what a blessing it is to be known for being different. Missy really sets herself apart by playing with our understanding of race and gender. It's a kind of hyperstylization, but which doesn't sit in with, you know, traditional stereotypical, sexist beauty norms. So it's very much a form of individualist self assertion against being stereotyped in traditional gender ways. There's a real power when women claim our expertise and impact. Missy Elliott openly talks about the massive impact she's had on the music industry, an industry that hasn't always been quick to recognize her. She calls herself an innovator. She doesn't wait for the industry to define her own success. She defines it herself. And why should we wait around for someone to tell us our value and our worth. There is such a power in saying, yes, the workout produces changing the game, and I'm going to own it. And that's exactly what Missy does. Do you think of Missy Elliott personally? Do you think of Missy Elliott as a digital innovator? Yeah, I mean definitely because she I mean, she's always been doing new things. And it's partly again being a woman and presenting herself in a way that you know only men were privileged to her. They're refusing the roles that women were religated to. But also I can I agree it does seem again it's very hard to quantify this, or it's very hard for me, especially to put my finger on how why did this which is doing this? But yeah, it always does feels it feels futuristic, it always feels it as a kind of I mean, it's sort of like has an edge. It's sort of like there's a famous statement by Lennon, the leader of the bullsh Revolution, when somebody said, are assured not being too radical, and Lennon replied, the only trouble is it's really hard to be as we must be as radical as reality itself. So that's the kind of phrase I would apply him as the Elliott She's always he's one of those people is trying to be as radical as reality itself. I love it. You know, I was not accepting a Lenin quote now right what you were going, But I love it. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, if it's a it's a great proach. So it's worth take out of context, you know. I mean, that's inn't that part of I mean, that's part of what a lot of art today does, including hip hop, is taking stuff out of context. And you know, one side they want you to recognize the original context. The other side they're really doing something really different than original with it, so it doesn't have the same meaning it had originally, so I've always thought of Missy Elliott as a tech innovator, as a digital innovator. I also think we're so much more comfortable calling male artists and male musicians innovators. No one will bat an eye if you called David Bowie or Prince an innovator, but we're so much less comfortable applying that label to women. Do you think that that's true, that we're less comfortable applying the label of innovator or genius to a female creative. That's probably true out of general sexism. I actually think it's really powerful and important for black female creatives, especially to be claiming these titles for ourselves and not waiting for somebody to say, yes, you are a genius, Yes you are an innovator, but saying yeah, I know, I'm innovative. I'm making music that nobody else is making. I'm taking risks, I'm taking chances. Yes I am an innovator. My only reservation is that I'm not thrilled with the word innovator, just because anytime any word gets adopted by business schools and social repeated about everything, but you know, in mainstream discourse, now you know, shaving you I don't know. Taking away the you know, the headphone porch and placing it with something else you need. The doctor is described as innovation. You know on the phone should like that. So, you know, it's always just depressing when words which have positive meanings to get so, you know, turned into business speak that you wonder whether it's us him anymore. I'm right there with you more. There are no girls on the internet after this quick right, and we're back. Missy stopped making music for a while to deal with her health after finding out she had graves disease, but she is solidly back and only recently she's getting the kind of respect as a digital innovator that she deserves. Is Michael Jackson Video vagar or means so much to me. I have worked diligently for over two decades. Last year, she won MTVS Vanguard Award, given to commemorate outstanding contributions and profound impact on music videos and popular culture, and some are even campaigning to have the award, once named after Michael Jackson, to be renamed in Missy's honor. She also earned an honorary degree from the prestigious Berkeley School of Music in Katie Perry headlined the Super Bowl halftime show. She brought out Missy Elliott as a special guest. Despite not having made any new music for years, Missy's performance was a massive hit. All three songs she performed entered the top ten lists on iTunes, even though they were all several years old. Google released their top Google searches during the performance, and they were all from youngsters googling who is Missy Elliott. Missy took it in stride, tweeting, the kids think I'm a new artist and I'm about to blow up like Paul mccarthney Laura of Mercy, and I think it's cool that new kids think I'm a new artist. That just goes to show you I'm still on fire and we'll rip downstage. Just twenty years later, Miss Elliott just now is sort of getting a lot more recognition than I feel she's gotten in the past. Like she's spoken about how the fact that you know she's been she's been behind so many important songwriters and musicians, but doesn't really get the credit. And she's been been clear that if she was a man, she feels like she would. Of course that's obviously true. Why do you think right now in this moment we're in culturally, Missy Elliott is sort of getting getting those props you know she was. She just became the first rapper to get an honorary degree from the Berkeley College of Music. She's getting them a Vanguard Awards, all of this it's hard to say. I mean, part of the problem, I think is that she's been ill for you know, for much of the last decade, so she couldn't mean her last full length album was I think in two thousands five, and since then she's released a few singles, and you know, maybe so I mean, it may be partly just that she's now in better health and more able to do stuff. I mean, I don't know, it's like four or five. I mean, she's she's made partial comebacks that people forget about you if you don't have a new album out. But I mean, I was, we were This is like she was. She shed performed in the Super Bowl mid you know, halftime show, like four or five years ago. I can't remember the exact year. And my kids, who are well they're now seven. My my have two daughters, they're seventeen and fourteen now, so this is like they were a few years younger. They were like tweens, they weren't quite teenagers yet. We were watching the you know, midtime. I forgot who the main headline there was, but Missy Ella came out of it, and my kids were just like, who says she's amazing? Like she they never heard of her, of course, because they were there were babies when her last album had come out. We're in this very kind of polaroious time we're on. At the same time, we have like rising fascism in our government and in lots of governments around the world, and yet at the same time we have a much bigger explosion of multicultural and multi gender I mean, you know, gayles and people, trans people, people of different races and ethnicities, you know, So you have this contradition. One hand, is much more emphasis on the multiplicity at the same time that we have this kind of fascist backlash which often seems to rule both the United States and other countries. So it's a very kind of weirdly for a time. And I don't know how to interpret that, but it seems to me that we're pushing these two directions at the same time. Oh, that's kind of a hopeful way to put it okay when well, I hope, so, I mean, I'm not very I mean, you know, I'm more optimistic about what some pop culture can throw up than I am about what will happen on the political scene. But who knows. I mean, nobody can predict. I mean, and you know, I mean even pop culture, we have more homogenization, like a higher percentage of Bouclaser goes to Marvel movies and everything else combined. But on the other hand, we have in all kinds of areas, especially when they're lower can be lower bridget we have much more wide varieties of expression. I was talking the other day to a museum director and they're doing a museum show on afro futurism, and they said, basically they could get the money for it because the Black Panther, the hook is will conduct. But of course apro futurism as existed for a long time before Black Panther, which was I mean, it was obviously by far the best Marvel movie. But you know, there's lots of other stuff going on. But sometimes you don't get the publicity. So I don't know, I mean again, and see, we seems it seems particularly schizophrenic between the kind of horrible things going on politically, and the kind of cultural renaissance which seems to be going on despite that politics. It's so interesting to talk about after futurism. Um, this is a personal aside, but um that was such a Those were such my foundational through roads into so many broader conversations about black identity, tech, digital digital thinking, you know, science fiction. When I was a kid, my dad had this one specific earth Wind and Fire album and it had this really cool like cover at Hamber I was a kid, I would stare at it for hours and run my fingers over and trying to figure out what does it mean? What does it mean? Come to find out I get older, it's like, oh, well, doesn't really mean anything. It's just like looks really cool. I was thinking there was some sort of like secret mystical you know. And I think like like artists who play with blackness and identity and and science fiction in the future, you know. I think for a long time it probably felt like when you when you as a as a black person, or I think any person of color or a marginalized community, sometimes it can be fraught to imagine our futures. And I think creatives who can help us imagine in our wildest dreams what those futures look like, and that they include us. I think it's so important and powerful. There's a show I live in Detroit and there's showed an art gallery downtown of apro futurist art. And one of the items in the show is that it's not actually in the gallery, it's on a billboard outside. It says there are Black people in the future. Oh. That's the installation from artist Alicia Wormsley. She puts up billboards reminding everyone that there are black people in the future. And I just saw on Instagram this morning. I thought it was so wild, because, of course, you know, on one hand, it shouldn't be a controversial statement to remind folks that, yes, there are black people in the future. But then also how arresting is that, How powerful is that we exist in the future. It's kind of a bold reminder there are black people in the future. And Missy Elliott helped me contextualize myself in that future and embrace all the wonderful weirdness that it could entail. We need to lift up our black visionaries and innovators, the weirdos who do things their own way and inspire others that they too can march to or even produce their own beats. So Missy Elliott is the visionary who inspired me, but we want to hear from you. What icons and visionaries are inspiring you. Let us know at Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangodi dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridgetad. It's a production of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michaelmato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridgetad. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. H

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