Missy Elliott Albums Ranked

When Eminem released his list of favorite rappers last month, there were a lot of obvious names on the list (Kendrick, Jay-Z, Biggie, Tupac) and a couple of head scratchers (J. Cole, anyone?). One thing there wasn’t? A single woman. No Lauryn, no Nicki, no Megan Thee Stallion (who’s at least better than J. Cole), and most damningly, no Missy Elliott.

Eminem sucks, so it’s not much of a slight. But when people talk about the best MCs of all-time, why isn’t Missy’s name near the top of the list? She’s a triple-threat, rapping, singing and producing across some of the best records of the 90s and 00s. The sound she pioneered with production partner Timbaland—a hiccuping, spacey counterpart to the sample-heavy East and the G-funk West—laid out a blueprint for modern R&B that’s still being followed today. Consider this: when Beyoncé was working on The Writings on the Wall with Destiny’s Child, the best songs were knockoff Missy/Timbo productions, so much so that she actually brought in Missy to produce for the record. There’s a direct line from her big girl-reppin’ approach to sex and Nicki Minaj, or her eclectic soulfulness and Teyana Taylor, or just about any other female rapper out there today.

While she hasn’t released a proper album since 2005, she’s still an active producer and occasionally puts out a one-off single (or most recently, an EP). But her six-album run from 1997 to 2005 is nearly unimpeachable, a creative outpouring that easily rivals any male’s discography across the same number of albums. F*** Eminem, give credit where it’s due.

6. The Cookbook (2005)

While Missy’s never made a bad album, she has made one very ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ album. As its title might imply, The Cookbook is all over the place, representative of most rap trends circa 2005. What it doesn’t sound like is any other Missy Elliott album, for the obvious reason that secret ingredient* Timbaland is relegated to just two songs on this album. Those two songs—“Joy” and “Partytime”—kick off the record in a promising way, but things turn wayward around track 5 and never really recover. Which is a damn shame, because the Missy-produced** “Lose Control” is maybe the best straight-up party record she ever made. Alas, that single can’t carry the rest of the album, which veers between ill-fitting production from hip-hop legends (The Neptunes-assisted “On & On”) and unspirited retreads of old songs (“We Run This”). All of Missy’s albums are long, but The Cookbook feels the longest. Fingers crossed this isn’t the last album we ever get from Missy.

5. Da Real World (1999)

Da Real World has some fantastic production, with most songs fitting somewhere between the smokey shuffle of Supa Dupa Fly and the full-on future funkery of Miss E, and the singles from the album (“Hot Boyz”, “She’s a Bitch”, and “All in My Grill”) are uniformly excellent. There are just too many guests on this thing. It totally kills the flow, especially when so many songs start with the guest verses. (Eminem’s voice was not meant to ride a Timbo beat.) Where Da Real World stands out is when Missy rides solo (“Smooth Chick”) or brings in another fierce lady to ride shotgun.*** But woof, this thing is long. Cut it in half, and you’ve got something special.

4. This Is Not a Test! (2003)

Definitely no Under Construction Pt II, This is Not a Test! swerves hard from the old school flips of Missy’s previous album into something colder and darker. There are tons of fun sounds to be heard, but the mood isn’t celebratory—hell, even the club bangers sound like something bad is gonna happen once the spoons stop clanging (“Pass That Dutch”). On its best songs (“Wake Up”, “Let Me Fix My Weave”), there’s nuance in the mix and bars to match. But too much of the album has one good idea (ex. the cartoon “BOING” sound effect distorted into oblivion on “Pump It Up”) that can’t be carried by aimless, repetitive lyrics. Missy complained in the press that this one was rushed, and it shows. With a little more effort and some editing, Test could’ve topped the list.

3. Supa Dupa Fly (1997)

This is both where it all started and a total outlier in Missy’s discography. No futurism (well, at least not in the production)***** and no club bangers, Supa is one laid back groove after another. Just look at the song titles—“Pass Da Blunt”, “Friendly Skies”, “Best Friends”—and you can get a sense of the *cough* smokey vibe of this thing. Of course, there are other song titles (“Sock It 2 Me” and “Don’t Be Cummin’ (In My Face)”) that lay bare the other theme of this album, which is pretty much just straight up sex. I know people talk a lot about how progressive it was to have a plus-sized Black woman singing about sex in 1997, and for sure it was, but it’s how she sings about it that’s most striking today. It’s not one-dimensional or hyperactive like what Lil’ Kim was doing around the same time; it’s diverse, surprising, and much more reflective of a full spectrum of desire and pleasure than what any other woman (or man, for that matter) was singing about at the time. As much as any Missy Elliott album can be, Supa Dupa Fly is a Sunday morning record, one to put on and nod your head to.

2. Miss E…So Addictive (2001)

This is where Missy Elliott, global superstar, launched straight into the stratosphere. Almost 20 years later, nothing sounds like Miss E…So Addictive. Timbaland’s beats were pretty much perfect starting with Supa Dupa Fly, but he’s on some next-level shit on every single track of this album, from the bhangra banger “Get Ur Freak On” to the slinky squelches of “One Minute Man” (which shows up twice). Across the alien, Eastern-tinged beats Timbo laid down, Missy sounds downright hungry, switching up rhythms and flip-flopping between singing and rapping like she’s playing hopscotch and staying in one place might kill her. And though her albums are always guest-heavy, Miss E… gets each performance just right, beaming in old partners (Redman, Da Brat) and new talent (Ludacris, with a verse that should’ve disqualified him from ever hopping on a Justin Bieber track) to maximum effect. From the intro track all the way to “Slap! Slap! Slap!” at track 14******, this thing does not let up an ounce. When Miss E… dropped in 2001, we thought it’s what the future would sound like. The fact that current music doesn’t even come close is both hugely disappointing and affirming of how special this album truly is.

1. Under Construction (2001)

Why the hell does Missy Elliott start her best album off with a minute of spoken word? It’s a statement of purpose, and in a post-9/11 world, an album this bonkers really calls for it: the world is a scary-ass place, and hip-hop has power to bring joy. What follows are 55 minutes of exactly that—Missy and Timbo sounding like kids in a candy store, updating old-school sounds to show off how fun making music can be. As with all their best work together, Missy and Tim bring out the best in each other, from the Blondie-sampling space funk of “Work It” (Timbaland’s best-ever beat) to Missy’s schoolgirl shit talk on “Gossip Folks”.*******  Even the slower tracks, like the hilarious sex jam “Pussycat”******** to her best-ever deep cut, “Slide”,********* are total knockouts. Under Construction was the second rap album I ever owned,********** and if I could only keep one for the rest of my life, this would be it.

Footnotes

*Pun intended 

**Yeah mothaf***a, Missy is a badass bitch behind the boards, too.

***My favorite moment on the album is when Missy is screaming “Imma hop in my car and Imma f*** you up, bitch!” on “You Don’t Know” with Lil’ Mo spitting some imitation Lil’ Kim**** bars one verse over. It’s hilarious and has not aged well, but makes me laugh (and sing along) every time.

****The real Lil’ Kim actually shows up for the very weird “Throw Your Hands Up” and the very, very weird “Checkin’ For You”, which is 90 seconds of Kim doing a spoken-word thing followed by one minute of Missy singing over Blade Runner ambiance. It’s one of the most singular moments in Missy’s discography, but I can’t decide if it’s good or bad. Right now, my gut says the Kim part sucks and the Missy part would’ve made an awesome album closer.

*****The music videos from Supa are easily the most forward-thinking thing about the album, especially the Hype Williams-directed video for “The Rain”, which was groundbreaking on so many levels (fashion, big girls looking sexy, fisheye perspective…all stops pulled for this beast). In hip-hop, Missy is untouchable as the queen of music videos.

******I told y’all Missy does NOT make short albums. Only two (Under Construction and This is Not a Test!) clock in at under an hour.

*******Seriously though, what the f*** is Missy doing with her voice on “Gossip Folks”? How did she ever think twisting her voice into that gravely whine would work on this track, and how the f*** does it work so damn well? Just more solid proof that she was nothing but solid idea after solid batshit idea during this period. Don’t even get me started on the spoken word bits on this song, which might be even better than the actual verses…? And the Ludacris guest rap, which is my absolute favorite verse to spit at karaoke ever. “Work It” gets the most love from this album, but “Gossip Folks” might be even better. 

********The lyrics on this thing make me LOL every time. “Can I put my booty booty up in your spaghetti, Daddy?” is one of the funniest lines in her whole discography, and I can’t recommend jamming to this song enough.

*********Fun fact: “Slide” is Bjork’s favorite Missy Elliott song. Bjork would go on to work with Timbaland on her 2007 album, Volta, which is the shittiest Bjork album and really the only bad one. I remember being in high school and trying SO HARD to get into it because of how much I loved both Bjork and Timbo, but yikes. It’s a rough listen.

**********The first was The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which I borrowed from my babysitter and then had to let my parents read the whole lyrics booklet before I was allowed to listen to.*********** While my parents let me purchase Miseducation, 7th-grade me knew that they wouldn’t like Missy. I had a friend burn a copy of Under Construction for me, then labeled it “Relient K” so my mom would think it was emo Christian music, not this freaky fantasy.

***********Fun fact: though the lyrics booklet contains two curses (both in Doo Wop (That Thing)), Lauryn doesn’t actually say either word in the song. On that technicality, I was allowed to listen to it. It’s one of my all-time favorite albums.