When rapper Missy Elliott embarked on her first headlining tour, she turned heads for the alien brilliance of her music. She was certain that the quirky, relentlessly inventive songs she recorded with producer Timbaland in the late ’90s and 2000s would endure for decades. By the end of the first night of her tour in Los Angeles, hip-hop had a new stadium-filling superstar.
It was the year 2024. The show was on Thursday.
It's incredible that at 53, one of rap's most important and creative artists has never had the chance to tour. It seems like a trivial fact you could say at a party and no one would believe, while everyone frantically Googles whether it could possibly be true.
Tens of millions of records sold, with beloved and still impactful singles; generations of artists influenced by her. Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, where it must have been 25 years since her debut to qualify.
Welcome to the road, Miss E. Glad to finally have you here.
Elliott completely remade the sound and style of rap with albums like 1997’s nimble “Supa Dupa Fly,” 1999’s brash “Da Real World” and 2001’s delirious “Miss E… So Addictive.” Timbaland’s beats were icy and jangly; his delivery was hot and eager. Tracks like “She’s a B—” and “Get Ur Freak On” were evidence of the new pleasures possible with a little mind-expansion. (And mind-filth: It’s hard to overstate how exciting these records were.)
Missy Elliott performing on her first headline tour in 2024.
(Alexis Smith / crowdmgmt)
So, after finally taking the stage at Crypto.com Arena on Thursday to a packed and enthusiastic crowd, she told her supporters that “if you came here tonight, you are people who think differently.” She meant this as a compliment to the supporters who were on her wavelength back then, but also to those who supported her now, as she took perhaps the biggest risk in a career already full of them.
Elliott hasn’t released a full album of new material since 2005, so any tour today will necessarily be a nostalgic trip. But the 90-minute, hits-packed set needed nothing more than the force of her vision to feel current. “I raised all these babies,” she teased on “Throw It Back,” from her 2019 EP, “Iconology.” “Don’t look for another Missy because there won’t be another.”
What other rapper would have dropped an MDMA reference like “Here’s a glass of orange juice, let’s pop it” at the height of his talents in 2001 on “4 My People,” which came back to sound lewd and tantalizing in 2024? Who else would have danced around in a billowing, building-sized cape like he did on “She’s AB—,” evoking the sculptural costumes from his beloved Hype Williams-directed music videos?
Missy Elliott meant possibility, then and now. In an age where social media is a merciless panopticon and artists live in mortal fear of an era of failure, she showed how thrilling it is to do exactly what you want, without being held down by the expectations others have of you. Did Doja Cat close out her headlining Coachella performance by wrestling in the mud during her song “Wet Vagina”? It probably wouldn’t have been possible without Elliott’s “Pussycat” before it.
Along with all that invention, Elliott remains one of the best technical rappers and songwriters working. No one has had more fun with the sound of his own voice, or written verses that ride on such uniquely complicated beats. When he invited Timbaland, his longtime collaborator and opening act, to perform his first track, “Up Jumps da Boogie,” they proved that their chemistry was something that only comes along once in a generation.
Missy Elliott performing on her first headline tour in 2024.
(Alexis Smith / crowdmgmt)
Whatever mix of feelings kept her off the stage for so long, it had nothing to do with her talent. While she has been open about her struggles with Graves’ disease (which can cause extreme weight loss, among other ailments), she was in stellar physical shape on stage Thursday, standing on a levitating platform above the crowd, strutting in front of a UFO-covered cornfield and changing into outlandish costumes with Beyoncé-caliber frequency.
Elliott built this entire bill around the idea that the late '90s and early 2000s were an extraordinarily fertile time for black music in America, when old-school artistry was given new instruments through modern technology and media.
Busta Rhymes, who recently blew the roof off the Grammys tribute to hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, took another lap of honor with his opening set, a hurricane of raspy breathing and commanding stage presence. Ciara, the R&B siren who rose up the charts in the mid-2000s, inherited Missy’s mantle on tracks like “Oh,” “Goodies” and “1, 2 Step.” On Thursday, she combined heated sexuality with nimble, modernist soundscapes. Her set proved those hits belong among the most resonant pop and R&B hits of her era.
Together, the four made an irrefutable argument that they saw the future back then and ultimately brought it all to life on stage today. Miss E remains addictive.
