“I gotta feel like what I’m giving the fans is one hundred percent and that it’s game-changing. I don’t just throw out microwave records,”

said Missy Elliott to Nicole James from Fuse TV, explaining Elliott’s hiatus this year.

That might be the best description of the depth and creative integrity of this rapper, singer, songwriter, and producer. She has won multiple Grammy awards for her work, and has collaborated with such superstars as Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, and producer Timbaland (who is also a childhood friend of hers.)

Elliott has been open about her troubled beginnings. She had realized from an early age that she wanted to work in the music industry—and also knew that this was not a career path that she could pursue and be taken seriously or supported. Speaking of serious matters, she was also balancing a troubled home life. Her father abused her mother to the extent that the young Missy Elliott would refuse to attend slumber parties at her friends’ houses in case she returned home to find her mother dead. One day, her mother took initiative and moved out. Elliott says that it was leaving such a grave situation of domestic violence that allowed her mother to accept her own strength and independence, and this change influenced Missy Elliott more positively as she was growing up.

While Elliott herself was voiced pessimism about the representation of gay talents in rap music, she is living evidence of the ability to overcome personal adversity as well as that of society. She had also undergone treatments for an autoimmune disorder known as Graves’ disease.

While lesbian rapper Syd the Kid speculated on Missy Elliott’s orientation in an interview with IKONS, Missy Elliott herself remains private on both her own orientation and her stance on identity politics. Fans await Elliott’s new album with baited breath.

image source – atlanticrecords.com