Fresh off of the Grammys’ 50th-anniversary celebration of hip-hop and her Doritos Super Bowl ad with Jack Harlow, Missy Elliott wants more of her fellow female rap pioneers to be honored by the culture at large. In a new interview with Forbes, Missy implores the current wave of female rappers taking over hip-hop to research the acts who paved the way for them.
“Women have played a big part in what we call hip-hop — in this culture,” she says. “These women are my friends, and we don’t just come together when it’s time to perform; we speak on the phone and hang around each other, but I’m never in such a relaxed, comfortable space because I always think about how these are the same women that I looked up to and still do. They have kicked down the doors for all the women you see today in 2023. Even if the women that are out now may not be familiar with all of their records, they have to know that these women are the reason they’re able to be on many of these platforms.”
For example, she credits Salt-N-Pepa with inspiring her to rhyme. “It felt like they were the whole package,” she says. “They had the records, but they also made us want to dress like them. They were just smooth. They also danced and were the reason that I got into rapping.” Hopefully, she can pass that torch; she’s currently nominated for the 2023 class of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, so her blueprint is certainly worth following.
Missy Elliott is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
