Missy Elliott "She's A Bitch"

Album: Da Real World (The Goldmind Inc./ Elektra; 1999)
Songwriters: Missy Elliott and Tim Mosley
R&B Peak Position: #30

"She's a bitch/ When I do my thing/ Got the place on fire, burn it down to flames"

By 1999, Missy Elliott and Timbaland were mad. Since introducing their collaborative attack of Y3K urban-pop wizardy and oft-kilter lyricism only a few years prior, they had influenced nearly an entire industry of copycats. Suddenly it seemed like everybody was singing, rapping or rocking out to double-time beats and kooky phrasings built from their distinct style. Left bitter that A) their sound was being so heavily "bit" and B) despite critical praise, they walked away from plenty award shows either empty-handed or not even recognized at all, the duo returned to the studio to craft an album scored in a much darker mood than the near-cartoonish, artsy-playful vibe of Elliott's '97 debut, Supa Dupa Fly. Even the title of Da Real World's first single expressed that something a lot more swarthy was on the horizon.

With a single "uh" and the arrival of a sinister boom-bap beat concoction, "She's A Bitch" found the artist nicknamed "Misdemeanor" ready to up the criminal-istic stakes on her mic game. Rocking a more assured flow than the spacey, elementary babble that dominated Supa Dupa, Elliott bust through Tim's militaristic funk mimicking machine-gun rounds and threatening "Give yo ass a black eye/ Oh say 'Bye bye'/ I'm-a give your body the sky".

Embracing the "b" word as a self-empowering title, Missy dismissed those "who talk mo' junk but won't look my way" with a single wrist flick, while marching her way up to the bar, sparking up a blunt and daring someone...anyone...to stop her mid-toke. Were we scared? Not really. Alarmed? Definitely.

Possibly a little disappointed that one of rap's most outrageous characters was falling in line with her more street-centric contemporaries, many struggled to get used to her new hardened rap diva guise. Because of such a polarizing reaction (and the fact that, for the times, it wasn't exactly radio-friendly), "She's A Bitch" ended up being only a minor hit, but it was a notable artistic shift nonetheless, marking a newfound skill confidence that would manifest in major mainstream kudos (FINALLY!!) on future albums.

Best Moment: The brief, Auto-Tuned R&B riffs sprinkled towards the end and the Hype Williams-directed video starring a bald, alien-disguised Elliott.

MISSY ELLIOT - BITCH
Uploaded by eikichi

DL: "She's A Bitch" (YFH)