Missy Elliott

Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott rolled out of Virginia Beach in 1997, with the coolest name, hair, sneakers, album cover, and sound in pop music. Supa Dupa Fly made her an instant star, along with producer Timbaland, her partner in crimes against sonic conformity. Ever since then, Missy has ruled everything around music. She sings, she raps, and she drops the bomb of the year, every damn year. Who else keeps us all glued to our radios to hear pop music updated one giant step at a time, in the style of Prince and Madonna in the '80s or the Beatles and Motown in the '60s?

Elliott introduced her recipe onSupa Dupa Fly. Her albums always have unbelievably sexy beats and vocals, Virginia swamp-funk hip-hop production from Timbaland, plenty of filler, a couple of terrible R&B slow jams, and Elliott talking wild shit between songs. "Supa Dupa Fly (The Rain)," "Izzy Izzy Aah," and "Sock It 2 Me" were stoned-to-the-bone psychedelic soul, the kind that techno and trip-hop composers had always promised but never delivered so intensely. The avant-garde sound of Supa Dupa Fly made Elliott and Timbaland the hottest writer/producer team around, scoring hits such as Nicole's 1998 "Make It Hot" (a Missy single in all but billing, and one of her best) and Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody?"

Da Real World was the one time Elliott got caught short of material. But Miss E . . . So Addictive had the smash "Get Ur Freak On," which sounded like Timbaland playing tabla on your frontal lobes while Missy yells "Holla!" until everybody who doesn't want to party drags that dead ass home. She got unexpectedly personal with Under Construction, reaching out to old-school '80s hip-hop in a spirit of playful nostalgia. Missy responds to grief and terror, including the death of her friend Aaliyah, by taking a fantastic voyage through the past in her double-Dutch bus, rocking it from the Dre Day to the Suge Knight. "Work It" was her most bizarre, futuristic, and undeniable hit yet, although fans also loved the slow jam with the chorus, "Pussy don't fail me now."

This Is Not A Test! is almost as great, with Elliott trying everything from gospel to electro to a romantic ballad for her vibrator ("Toyz"). In "Pass That Dutch," she and Tim set off car alarms, whistles, hand claps, kettledrums, heavy breathing, and party people chanting "Hootie-hoo!" It's an all-nighter at the sweatiest club in town, compressed into three and a half minutes. Elliott's made the single of the year at least three times -- four if you count "Make It Hot" -- and yet she still sounds as hungry and driven as ever. She refuses to repeat past successes, pushing on to newer and weirder realms while everyone else is catching up to what she was doing years ago. And after all these years, Missy and Timbaland still save their best stuff for each other. Holla! (ROB SHEFFIELD)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide