70. Missy Elliott – Work It (2002)

In 2002, on Doctor's orders, Missy had to start a slimming diet, and give up her special look. When this record came out, it sounded like the music went on a diet as well, removing the fat and leaving only the funky skeleton. So? Did it make it any less brilliant? Not while Timbaland has anything to say about it.

What can I say about this record? That it is almost as good as 'Get Ur Freak On', that it is 100% pure unadulterated funk, that I would have placed him a lot higher if I didn't want to represent Missy in the bottom part of the chart as well. So here are Timbaland and Missy, to shake the bottom part.

Missy elliott - work it
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56. Missy Elliott – 4 My People (Basement Jaxx remix) (2001)

Hip-hop and dance were alienated to one another in the nineties, when gangsta-rappers, surrounded in chronic smoke, made laidback heavy records, which had no rapport with the ravings of the ecstasy-driven dance boys. Towards the end of the decade you could here some attempts at bringing them together, and in 2001 Missy Elliott released her masterpiece album Miss E… So Addictive, which was like a drug in itself, but also revealed a change in habits. "Miss E" is one of the monikers Missy has for herself, but E is also the symbol of the famous amphetamine, and this hip-hop-rave record turns her into a priestess of ecstasy. The music proves that rappers can rave as well, and the rap heralds hip-hop's invasion into club world, serving as an anthem for the era that saw the rise of crunk, grime and other styles that combine the two worlds. Dancefloors around the world reacted enthusiastically to Elliott's call, and the record became a hit on the dance charts.

Basement Jaxx's remix, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't add or subtract from the original. But it is this version that came out as a video-clip, so it earns the honor of making the parade.

40. Missy Elliott feat. Ciara & Fatman Scoop - Lose Control (2005)

The first time I got an inkling that things are moving towards electro was when this record came out. Electro emerged out of hip-hop in the beginning of the eighties, and was an indivisible part of it for a while, but by the middle of that decade hip-hop turned to hard street realism, and lost its futuristic dimension. Electro went underground, merged with European dance, broke into the mainstream with Kylie Minogue in the beginning of the naughties, but still did not reconnect with black music. Now, in the middle of the decade, when hip-hop reached an impasse, Missy Elliott joined singer/rapper Ciara and rapper/shouter Fatman Scoop, to create a record that sounds like a throwing of all hip-hop's elements into a cauldron and stirring them up to start all over again. In the process, she also throws electro back into the mix.

Two samples here, from two classic 1983 electro records. One is Hot Streak's 'Body Work', and out of it comes the slogan that's always true: "music makes you lose control". That is, after all, the common denominator of every pop style - they are all ecstatic in their basis, driving you to intoxication. With this sample, Missy goes back to the sources of hip-hop and draws from them, to create an ecstasy fit for our time. The other sample, however, is from Cybotron's 'Clear', and it signifies something else. Cybotron was Juan Atkins' electro group, and in it Atkins already began to develop his philosophy, which would be the basis for a new style. From the mid-eighties, when hip-hop stopped imagining the future and focused on the here and now, Atkins and some of his Detroit peers took the music in a more futuristic direction, offering science fiction from a black man's perspective, and by that offering an alternative view of the present and the past as well. Thus, they detached from hip-hop, and created techno. But hindsight shows that the foundations of techno already exist in Cybotron's music, and the sample, which loops throughout the record and gives it its forward momentum, takes hip-hop back to the future.

Has the message been received? Still hard to tell. Hip-hop, like pop in general, turned more electro in recent years, but I've yet to hear anything truly creative and futuristic. I have a feeling, though, that it will come.

15. Missy Elliott feat. Ludacris & Trina - One Minute Man (2001)

In the sixties, the most famous song that dealt with sex from a female perspective revolved around the question: "will you still love me tomorrow?" That was the dominant perception: boys want sex, girls want love. The boy tries to get the girl in the sack, the girl gives it up if she is convinced that the boy loves her, but during the act she's gripped with anxiety that it would turn out he fooled her, and his love for her will evaporate once his lust is fulfilled. That was the perception that ruled until the end of the millennium.

The new millennium introduces a new female attitude. This record says: never mind about your love lasting, let's see how you last in sex, and I will decide what to do with you tomorrow. This is a true revolution in the relationship between the genders, and we are in a new era.

Alright, Missy. As long a you keep my ass moving like that, you will get exactly what you want.

3. Missy Elliott - Get Ur Freak On (2001)

If Mary J. Blige was the one who brought the soul, Missy Elliott was the one who brought the funk. Unlike Mary, she didn't drag hip-hop to the realms of R'n'B, but rather proved that you can beat men in their own ballpark, and brought it on with rap. And not just rap, but a rap that was hornier, racier and more aggressive than anything the men had to offer. Along with her producer Timbaland, Missy provided the most creative, funky and freaky hip-hop of the late nineties, and in the beginning of the naughties she broke into the mainstream. In the face of the puritan American culture, which teaches girls that they are not supposed to enjoy sex, Missy throws a record that announces sex as part of her essence, and urges us to turn on that essence within us as much as possible. This record does exactly what funk is supposed to do: pounding on every dormant spot in the body, stimulating the nodes to produce the juices of life. The funkiest record of the decade.

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