Hip-hop star Missy Elliott hasn’t released an album in nine years. The chart-topping rapper, singer, songwriter and producer has largely stayed away from the spotlight during that time. In a recent interview with Yahoo!, the former “Misdemeanor” Elliott spoke about her lengthy hiatus and she revealed that her silence has been due to her perfectionism more than anything.
“When I create something, it’s gotta be special and it can’t just be to throw something out there because I feel like I’m Missy,” she said. “I gotta feel like what I’m giving the fans is 100 percent and that it’s game-changing. I don’t just throw out microwave records.
“When you are creating to the magnitude that I try to create, your brain is like a computer sometimes,” Missy told interview Michael Yo. “It needs to refresh…Your brain needs time to refresh.”
The star says that the faster pace of pop culture has changed her approach to music.
“It didn’t used to be like that. It used to be like your album was such a classic that it could go on for two years and then you drop another joint. But it’s now like this (snaps). But your brain needs time to refresh because things happen in your life where, you know, you can then write something else instead of the same three topics. Like, how many times are we going to talk about the club?”
Missy says that she’s paid attention to how pop music has changed since her late 90s, early 2000s heyday, and she can’t ignore the shift.
“Just being inspired by things is what I’m grabbing for because music is different now,” Missy said. “Not to say that it’s bad. It’s just different now, so I’m just trying to make sure that what I give is 100 percent because I know that expectations is high from my fans and it’s high of myself.”
Missy says she’s working on Faith Evans‘ upcoming album.
“I used to actually live with Faith before I was an artist. She was one of the people that encouraged em along with Mary [J. Blige] and [Lil] Kim,” she says.” Faith was one of those people who allowed me to stay in her house and eat up her food. So yeah, we’re going to do something on this album.”
