A Supa Dupa Fly Tribute to Missy Elliott - A Supa Dupa Fly Tribute to Missy Elliott's Debut Album

a Missy Elliott tribute

Twenty years after the debut of Missy Elliott’s iconic, Supa Dupa Fly, we celebrate the creative genius that produced one of hip-hop’s most important albums.

“Missy is like a Madonna for rap music, how Bjork is for alternative. She just thinks different.” - HYPE WILLIAMS ”

A Feminist Hip-Hop Icon

by malaika jabali

Two decades ago, Missy Elliott’s debut album Supa Dupa Fly catapulted her to mainstream fame after she labored behind the scenes for years as a hit-making writer and producer. From the moment she debuted, it became clear that Missy would challenge what we came to expect from not just women rappers, but from the genre as a whole.

The debut single, “The Rain,” and its accompanying video were a tour de force. Missy defined what it meant to be an artist, and not merely a performer. Far from accepting whatever video treatments her directors provided, the singer, dancer, producer, and rapper has been intimately involved with guiding the direction of all her visuals.

From the garbage bag suit and bugeye goggles to spastic choreography, Missy’s unapologetically weird vision became legendary. She was a precursor to the “carefree black girl” movement.

Instead of playing up her sex appeal, which many female artists felt compelled to do, Missy opted for the abstract and bizarre. Essentially, she made video making an art form.

After Missy conceived of “The Rain” visuals with acclaimed music video and Belly director Hype Williams, Williams professed in a 1999 Rolling Stone interview:

“She’s a very advanced person. You’re not going to find that many young female artists that are going to go in any direction outside of what’s typical. Typical beauty, typical fashion. Missy is like a Madonna for rap music, how Bjork is for alternative. She just thinks different.”

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And she’s continued to be different, and incredibly influential, for 20 years since. Missy had her hand in songwriting or production for virtually every well-known R&B diva and group in the 90s and 2000s. She’s written for R&B standard bearers Mariah Carey, Whitney and Beyoncé. She's produced hit singles for everyone from Ciara to Total, Tamia and SWV. She wrote and produced 702’s biggest hit ("Where My Girls At"), Fantasia’s debut "Free Yourself," which earned Grammy nominations, penned Aaliyah classics ("4 Page Letter," and "I Care 4 U," among others), crafted the vocal arrangement for Diddy’s “All About the Benjamins,” and spearheaded Monica’s comeback with “So Gone.” All in all, she’s written nearly 100 mainstream songs and produced dozens more, with a large amount of them R&B and rap staples.

Her career has been utterly mind blowing. A significant achievement considering the historic marginalization of women in rap. Rap icon Lil' Kim received her only Grammy win on a group pop record (Lady Marmalade). It took nearly two decades of rap to exist for a female rap act to go platinum (Salt-N-Pepa in 1995). And Missy, one of the most prolific music video artists in pop culture ever, has never won an MTV Video Music Award for rap.

This marginalization is only further magnified for black women who don’t fit mainstream media’s beauty standards. Consequently, one could easily argue that Missy does not receive nearly the accolades she deserves--like her contemporaries Pharrell Williams and Timbaland-- who came out of the same Virginia production scene in the early 1990s.

Nevertheless, Missy Elliott became a trailblazer. Not just for women, but for all the weird kids and adult artists who didn’t think they could ever forge a path in an industry riddled with deadly machismo and stale conventions.

The culture is forever indebted to Missy for her pioneering genre-pushing and gender-bending innovation.

“Working on Supa Dupa Fly with Missy was one of the most endearing and exciting experiences in our early careers. Side-by-side with her through the entire project, we could have only dreamt of the impact it would have two decades later. As a friend and creative partner, Missy is one-of-a-kind, and I believe that debut album presented the amazing artist I know and love.” - TIMBALAND”

9 Little-Known Facts About Supa Dupa Fly

by Danielle Kwateng-Clark

In Missy's 1997 video for "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" a ton of her friends appear in the Hype Williams work of art, including Lil' Kim, 702, Taj SWV, Yo Yo, Total, 702, Da Brat, Lil' Cease and Puff Daddy.

The combination ofMissy's staggered flow flow and Timbaland's innovative, beat-heavy production,set the pace for hip-hop's crossover to pop in the 1990s. The true testament tothis was Supa Dupa Fly peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Everything down to the art direction of Supa Dupa Fly was impeccable and innovative. For her debut project, the album art was shot by Kwaku Alston and art direction lead by a young Romon K Yang, who's now a lauded abstract artist.

Ann Peebles' 1973 hit "I Can't Stand the Rain" was sampled for Missy's hit song "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)". The inspiration for the original song was Peebles' frustration with rain pouring down just as she was about the leave the house.

Except for two tracks on the 17-song album, Timbaland produced every single song on Supa Dupa Fly. The pair met in the early '90s through Melvin "Magoo" Barcliff who had recently met Missy while in her girl-group, Fayze.

Keith Sweat, who was signed to EastWest Records with Missy at the time, has background vocals on Supa Dupa Fly— although it's not been specified which songs.

Even though Sean"Puffy" Combs wanted to sign Missy as a solo act, she opted for a contract with an imprint of Elektra Entertainment Group (EastWest) that allowed her to establish The Goldmind, Inc. Through her own label, Elliott put out her debut project.

When Supa Dupa Fly dropped, Missy was managed by Violator Management founded by the late Chris Lighty and Mona Scott-Young, who is now the executive producer of several VH1reality shows.

In addition to being inspired by a Mega Man video game, Missy's "Sock It 2 Me" video was another Hype Williams creation. In it were Lil' Kim as her sidekick hero, Da Brat and Timbaland as a weird scientist.

“I believe ‘Supa Dupa Fly’ was one of the most innovative albums, far ahead of its time! Missy is the most talented female artist, I have ever had the honor of working with. She can turn any tune into something special. From R&B to hip-hop, she is the definition of taking it to another level. I will always admire/ love her style and creativity. I definitely think she is a necessary component in the music industry.” - GINUWINE ”

Long Live The Queen

by Aliya S. King

Let's start here: No woman in hip-hop has sold more records in the history of the Nielsen ratings. Not Queen Latifah. Not Lauryn Hill. Not Lil Kim or Foxy. Not Nicki Minaj. No one. There’s this woman. And then there’s everyone else.

We can also start here: She single-handedly changed the very identity of what a performer could look and sound like—owning her style unapologetically. If you don’t understand how finger waves and garbage bags could change a generation of—

Wait. We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s talk about being legendary.

Legends are both born and made. And Melissa “Missy” Elliott cemented her status as a future legend while she was still a teenager.

She grew up writing music and forming groups. In 1991, she got a chance at the big time—singing for Devante from Jodeci, the New Jack Swing group who ran the charts at the time. Before her adhoc audition, she checked in with Timothy Mosley, her friend and future musical partner who would later be named Timbaland.

Tim was unsure about what singing forDeVante would do. Jodeci was huge. Missy and her bandmates were local and unpolished.

“So you really think you’re going to get a chance to sing for him?” Tim asked Missy.

“I will absolutely sing for him,” Missy said.

“And you really think he’s going to be feeling y’all?”

“He will absolutely be feeling us.”

“And you honestly think he’s going to sign you to a record deal? While he’s still here in town?”

“He is going to sign us to a record deal while he’s here in town.”

We all know where this is going, right? Timbaland thought poor Missy was really misguided to put so much faith in a singing group that had not been able to get off the ground. The idea that they could leap into the same universe as Jodeci was laughable. But we all know what happens when you underestimate Missy Elliott.

The next day, she found a way to sing for Jodeci. DeVante was feeling the group. And he signed them to his newly formed record label within days.

But the experience with Devante turned into a disaster and their album was never released. Elliott immediately decided that she would never perform again. She’d found her groove with Timbaland and planned to only write and produce for other artists—performing and recording was too unpredictable and painful.

For the next five years, it made perfect sense for Missy to stick to writing and producing. SWV. 702. Mary J.Blige. New Edition. Destiny’s Child. Missy wrote and produced monster hits for a bevy of artists, stomping tracks with her signature eclectic style.

It would be her work with Aaliyah that would cement her legacy—as well as Timbaland, her musical partner in crime. The duo worked on nearly every track from One In A Million, Aaliyah’s second album scoring hit after and moving it to double platinum status.

“It’s not easy to show the world who you are—and be ready for the criticism that often comes with it. Missy never wavered.” ”

Missy decided to get a label deal so that she could sign and produce for her own artists. She met with Elektra’s Sylvia Rhone. Rhone told Missy she would be happy to give her a label deal—as long as the first release would be a solo Missy album.

Missy balked. She told Rhone about the group she was in. She told her about how she felt like she didn’t have the right look. And that her sound would be too far left for the audience.

Rhone told her to get in the studio for a few days and see what happened. Two weeks later, Supa Dupa Fly, which turns 20 years old this month, was completed.

Why this album matters? First, the singles from the album, including “The Rain” and “Sock It 2 Me” are timeless hits that would undoubtedly win Grammys today. Also, Missy predates some of our favorite hip-hop artists—giving them a vibe that would remain fresh for decades. Singing and rapping and producing like Lauryn Hill? Missy did it a year earlier. Switching up faux accents and funky facial expressions like Nicki Minaj? Missy did it when Nicki was a teenager.

It’s not easy to show the world who you are—and be ready for the criticism that often comes with it. Missy never wavered.

It may seem odd to boil down Missy’s effervescence to one song, one video, one moment. But the true testament to who she is was born in that way. In the video for “The Rain,” music video director Hype Williams used a fish-eye lens on Missy, who’s rocking industrially glossy finger waves, dark lipstick and inexplicably—an outfit that looked like an inflated garbage bag.

This just wasn’t what women did in hip-hop back then. Outside perhaps the antics of TLC, which was more pop than hip-hop, there was little freedom. Women in hip-hop were either eye candy or too-cool-for-school. Missy refused to follow the rules. She wanted to create art—in the studio and in front of the camera. And by doing so she gave many women—and men—the idea that they didn’t need to be boxed in.

We began this journey explaining how finger waves and garbage bags could change the world.

Twenty years ago, Missy Elliott took those two inordinate items and changed the music world. And she never looked back.

Videos From Supa Dupa Fly

credits: Editorial | yolanda sangweni, christina coleman, danielle kwateng-clark, Aliya S. King Creative | teneille craig