Courtesy of Billboard.
I wasn’t really looking forward to Katy Perry’s Super Bowl performance, assuming it would be cartoonish, poppy and possibly include Katy appropriating a cultural identity or two. However I ended up enjoying the show much more than I had thought possible. Some of this had to do with the dancing sharks and Lenny Kravitz’s outfit game but the biggest reason for the show’s greatness was the featuring of Missy Elliott. Missy performed classics “Get Ur Freak On” and “Work It” with Katy Perry dancing by her side and when Katy left the stage for a quick costume change, Missy did her iconic hit “Lose Control.” It was truly a privilege watching Missy’s performance. As she rapped, accompanied by an extremely talented group of teenage hip hop dancers and clad in the dopest leather jumpsuit, I found myself wishing it was the early 2000s again.
The online response to Missy’s appearance was extremely positive. Similar to my own reaction, thousands of people across the country reported their glee over hearing the easily recognizable first notes of “Get Ur Freak On” and seeing Missy’s glorious silhouette appear on their screen. Other reactions to her performance were more comical. Several people, unaware of Missy’s status as a platinum-selling legend and veteran of the game, posted things along the lines of “Katy Perry is gonna make this Missy Elliott girl blow up.Û
Indeed, after the Super Bowl it appears that maybe America simply needed a reminder of Missy Elliott’s greatness. After her performance, downloads of her music skyrocketed, with all three of the hits she performed during the halftime show reaching the top ten most downloaded tracks on iTunes this past week.
It’s true that Missy has been off the radar for a while, taking time to recover from an illness, but I was still surprised how many people had forgotten about or never even known her music if they were just now accessing it. But as surprising as this was, it also warmed my heart to see people responding so positively to these classic hip hop songs and even buying them the next day. And maybe this is just me overanalyzing what was simply a recipe for success, but perhaps the public’s support of Missy Elliot means that the public would be ready again to support a less sexualized, more lyrical female rapper.
I’m not trying to throw shade at female rappers of today but with so few ladies making it into the mainstream hip hop world, it’s hard to not notice that all the ones who do wear minimal clothing and have a very limited subject matter. There is nothing wrong with sexually confident and provocative female artists, which in fact is a great thing, but it is also important that there be other types of female artists and content in the spotlight as well. It’s true that Missy Elliot never shied away from sexual content in her songs (one listen to “Work It” makes that very clear) but her sexuality is never what defined her. Instead, Missy’s innovation is what made her so popular – from fashion to production to music videos, she was always ahead of the curve.
It is that type of balance and diversity of narrative that we got from Missy and ’90s/early 2000’s peers such as Lauryn Hill or MC Lyte that is tangibly missing in hip hop culture today. However, the response to Missy Elliot gives me hope that this does not need to be the case. Pop music’s audience still seems receptive to Missy’s brand of hip hop. Perhaps Missy will stage a comeback, or perhaps some similar up-and-coming female MCs will be able to break into the mainstream; either way, hip hop can only benefit from such a change.