Missy Elliott’s debut album Supa Dupa Fly was released on July 15, 1997, and remains in the multiple GRAMMY-winning artist’s heavy listening rotation. Her forward-thinking gift for writing, rapping and singing memorable songs with gospel-informed soul hooks and time signature-shattering beats ushered in the 2000s early and sent everyone scrambling to copy the new style.
"A lot of times, when I need some inspiration now, I listen to it," Elliott tells GRAMMY.com in a rare interview. "To be honest, I listen to it because I feel like we were in such a vulnerable place and we didn’t have any kind of expectations, so we just did what felt good to us."
The "we" is Elliott and her friend Tim "Timbaland" Mosley, who served as her co-executive producer and close musical collaborator on Supa Dupa Fly. Together, they served up a perfectly arranged, cohesive collection of songs and interludes that still shows artists around the world how to think outside the box musically. They not only influenced hip-hop and R&B acts, but Southern chopped and screwed DJs, house music producers, drum & bass experimentalists, and much more.
"So I always try to go back to that space," Elliott says, "because once you become successful at something then the expectations become higher and you start to think more. When we did that album, there wasn’t really much thought there …. We really just came out with a sound that we had been doing for some time, but we had no clue that it would be game changing, that we would change the cadence — the sound of what was happening at that time. No clue!"
Remarkably, this hit album — which generated four singles and compelling music videos for "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)," "Sock It To Me," "Beep Me 911" and "Hit Em Wit Da Hee" — was written and recorded in days, and was nominated for Best Rap Album and Best Rap Solo Performance at the 40th GRAMMY Awards.
"There have been times I’ve had ideas ahead," she shares, "but for this particular album, it was most definitely right on the spot. It took us two weeks to record this album and it was because, at the time, I didn’t want to be an artist."
Elliott had just been in an R&B group called Sista that was signed to Elektra Entertainment Group under a record label headed up by Jodeci founder and producer DeVante Swing. Sista recorded an album, but it wasn’t released after Swing parted ways with Elektra.
The stalled experience made Elliott want to focus on songwriting and developing other artists instead of being in the spotlight. Ultimately, she inked a business deal with Elektra executive Sylvia Rhone that included a solo recording contract as well as her own record label.
"A lot of people wanted to sign me; there was a bidding war," Elliott explains. "Every label out there was trying to get me to sign to them and I wanted to have a record label instead of being an artist. When I took a meeting with Sylvia Rhone about having a record label she said, ‘I’ll give you a label if you give me an album.’ So we went in and I was like, ‘Tim, let’s go in here and do this album real quick so I can get started on my label.’"
Rhone gave Elliott no guidance other than to just be herself in the studio, and she deferred to Elliott’s artistic decisions — a record business rarity both then and now.
"She had an eye," Elliott says of Rhone. "She is a creator, a visionary, so she saw it." Just two months after it was released, Supa Dupa Fly brought Elliott’s new record label The Goldmind, Inc. its first certified Platinum album.
The album’s lead single "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" and the unforgettable accompanying video were released two months before the album dropped, and undoubtedly helped to propel album sales. Most of the album isn’t built around samples, but "The Rain" features a hook created by sampling a song that came out in 1973, when Elliott was just 2 years old: Ann Peebles’ "I Can’t Stand The Rain."
Peebles’ song features sounds that evoke water droplets, which were created by overdubbing notes played on an electric timbale, then a new instrument on the scene. "I Can’t Stand The Rain" was later covered by a disco group called Eruption, who took it to No. 1 in Belgium and Australia in 1978, and Tina Turner, who included it on her 1984 smash album Private Dancer.
"Ann Peebles is iconic," Elliott says. "That sample in itself was a big contributor to that record. I got a chance to take a picture and meet her, and of course she loved it and I love her. Even when you listen to the original version, there is a nostalgia about it. And that’s what made us gravitate to that record anyway, because it had a hypnotic feel to it.
"I don’t know where Ann Peebles lives, so I wouldn't say we go to Six Flags every other weekend," Elliott says when asked if the two stay in touch. "But she was most definitely so sweet when I met her and I am humbly grateful that she allowed us to use that record. I’m quite sure that if we ran into each other again there would always be love — and shoot, if she wanted to go to Six Flags, we could go to Six Flags! She is very, very sweet."
The album features some significant guest stars, including the late star Aaliyah, a beloved protege of Timbaland’s and Elliott’s, who duets on "Best Friends"; Ginuwine, the singer of "Pony" fame; and rap star Busta Rhymes, then an Elektra labelmate at the time. There are also appearances by singer Nicole Wray, the first artist signed to Goldmind; and Magoo, a rapper and friend from Elliott's Virginia hometown Virginia friend of the executive producers.
Elliott recognizes the staying power of the song and the imagery she created in the video for "The Rain." Her inflated and oversized black suit, which brilliantly pokes fun at beauty standards, is regularly and lovingly parodied by fans in YouTube and TikTok videos.
"'The Rain' was such nostalgia, I think about it a lot," Elliott reflects. "When I see pictures, it’s like the beginning of such a legacy. I just posted something the other day — people are still grabbing Glad trash bags, mimicking that video."
"The Rain" video is so enduring, that it’s worth reminding that three other incredible videos came from Supa Dupa Fly. Elliott (in a space suit emblazoned with the Gmail logo) and Da Brat orbit outer space in a high-tech anime fantasy filmed for "Sock It To Me." She’s a technicolor princess in "Beep Me 911" (which features the Las Vegas R&B group 702), and effortlessly channels Michael Jackson’s "Smooth Criminal" era in "Hit Em Wit Da Hee," a collaboration with Lil’ Kim.
"Yeah, I was everywhere!" Elliott says of those groundbreaking and large-scale videos, which came with six-figure price tags. "That’s the fun thing about it: I feel like I came up in the era of experimenting. The '80s were really experimental. The '90s were really the piggyback off of that, so it allowed the '90s artists to be experimental. That’s the greatness about the videos that I did: they take you on a ride. You feel like you’re in those places in each video."
Supa Dupa Fly and those accompanying music videos earned Elliott some very big fans.
"Janet [Jackson], Whitney [Houston] — so many of those legends, I was like, ‘Wow, did I arrive?’" Elliott remembers. "I remember I had Whitney sing on the phone because I couldn’t believe it was her. You just didn't get a call from Janet and Mike [Jackson] … so I answered the phone and she was like, [uses quiet voice] ‘Hi, it’s Janet,’ and I’m like, ‘Stop playing on my phone!’ I’m thinking it’s one of my friends and I hung up and then my manager called me and said, ‘Hey, Janet is going to be calling you.’ I’m like, ‘Oh my God, why didn't you tell me? I just hung up on her!’ So people like that most definitely enjoyed the album."
The success of Supa Dupa Fly was additionally resonant for Elliott, who had wanted to be behind the scene.
"I felt like months before, I didn’t want to be an artist and now I’m rethinking it because I was like, ‘Wow, this is fun! Y’all really like it?’" Elliott remembers. "[Supa Dupa Fly] allowed me to work with a lot of different artists and the thing was, they appreciated the fresh new sound that hadn’t been heard."
"Missy always wanted to be up there," her mother confessed to the New Yorker in 1997. "As a little girl, she would ask me to bring home stamps, for all these letters she was writing. The letters would be returned, and I’d see that she’d written to Diana Ross, and whatnot."
25 years on, Elliott — firmly up there — hopes to celebrate this special Silver anniversary of Supa Dupa Fly in a major way.
"I think I’m going to have a big party and just celebrate, because it is a big mark in my career," she says. "That was the beginning and I do remember it like it was yesterday; I do remember going in the studio and not knowing. I didn't think about what 25 years would look like; I was living in the moment. Now, I feel like it’s time.
"In 2022, I’m able to reminisce and enjoy that space," she adds. "I feel like that a lot of times. There were a lot of big moments in my career — we didn’t come up in the social media world, we didn’t start that way, so a lot of it was just living in the moment. Now, I get a chance to look back and appreciate it and be like, 'Wow, that was a game changing time,' enjoy it and smell the flowers."
