Women Who Rock: Missy Elliott

With her eyes closed, Missy Elliott bobs her head up and down and taps her French-manicured nails gently against the boombox balanced on her lap. She's grooving to "Funky Toyz" -- an old-school-R&B-sounding track from her upcoming album that talks about the pleasure women can get from battery-powered devices. "It's not that dirty," she says, flashing a smile and giggling. "I feel like people kind of look for me to be that voice. You remember when they had that commercial -- 'Mikey will like it'? Now it's like, 'Missy will say it.' "

At this year's MTV Video Music Awards, Elliott, 32, teamed with Madonna, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera for the now-legendary opening performance, and then she snagged two Moonmen, including Best Video of the Year, for "Work It." Each of Elliott's four albums has gone platinum, but her latest, Under Construction, has been her biggest hit to date, with more than 2 million copies sold. Already Elliott is nearly done with her fifth album in six years, This Is Not a Test, which comes out on November 25th. "Not to say I'm the hardest-working female out there," she demurs, "but I do work very, very hard, and I don't even feel like I do anything else but be in the studio. I have not had a vacation since I've been an artist. I always gotta be doing something or I would just get bored."

What has been the most surreal moment of your career?

I could name so many. When I got my first phone call from Janet. My first phone call from Whitney. My first phone call from Mariah. The first time I spoke to Madonna. Getting a call from Michael Jackson. In my mind, I was like, "I think people need to stop playing with my phone. I'm going to have to get my number changed." I'm still in groupie mode. Madonna was somebody I watched on TV, and I put on all those belts and gloves and started singing "Like a Virgin" in my room. You couldn't tell me I wasn't the black Madonna. So, to get those phone calls, I never adjusted to that. Each one was like, "Wow."

As a woman, you've taken a very nontraditional career path.

I think that happened for a reason. I wasn't what people wanted to see -- the light skin with the long hair blowing in the wind and the Janet Jackson six-pack. So it was honestly better that way, because I got the chance to guest-appear on records, and they loved the records so much that by the time they got the chance to see me, it really didn't matter. They didn't have a chance to judge, like, "OK, who's the big mama on the TV screen?"

Do you think female artists are more competitive with one another than male artists are?

As women, we're funny. If you get a bunch of women in a house, after a while there will be problems. I really love working with somebody like Eve, because she isn't like that. We need more women like her. It makes sense that if you're hot and I'm hot, we should make a record together. Because then we'll both be hot and we'll both have a lot of money. The perfect example is Christina and Britney at the MTV Video Music Awards: "We might not go to Disneyland when this is over. We ain't going to have a sleepover at each other's house. But we see how huge this is." Madonna, Britney, Christina: Who would have turned that down? Not me.