Missy Elliott Covers Billboard Magazine
We’re so happy she’s baaaaaaaaack!
Today Billboard announces that Missy Elliott, who graces this week’s cover will be honored with the brand’s first ever ‘Innovator’ award at this year’s Women in Music event, to be televised on Lifetime on December 18.Missy Elliott, who has taken a substantial amount of time off in between releasing any music, opens up to Billboard in today’s cover story about the unreleased songs she recorded during her break, her pre Super Bowl performance meltdown, living with Graves’ disease, and her long awaited comeback.
Check out some great excerpts from their interview below:
Missy had a full blown panic attack right before she performed for the Super Bowl:
“Like, IVs in my arm, everything,” she says. “Nobody knew.” The day of the show, she -remembers being just offstage and -hearing the -opening riff of “Get Ur Freak On.” “I said, ‘If I can get over this step, then I know all my dance steps will be on point,’ ” she recalls. “I know it was nothing but the grace of God that lifted me up and took me through that -performance.”Elliott sold nearly 350,000 song downloads by the end of the following week alone.
She has about 6 albums worth of unreleased music from the past decade:
“If I wanted to do The Missing Files of Missy Elliott, I have probably six albums just sitting there,”
On living with Graves’ disease:
“It causes hair loss, your eyes bulge,” she says. “My blood pressure was always up from just overworking.”
Sharaya J., an artist signed under Elliot, on how the disease affected her:
“It started to change her way of life,” she says. “There were -physical changes, extreme headaches, extreme weight loss. What that does to a person, being a public figure and knowing people are looking, judging? That’s a tough thing.”
On taking such a long break in between albums:
“People hadn’t realized that I haven’t just been an artist, I’ve been a writer and a producer for other artists. When you’re writing that much, your brain is like a computer. You have to refresh it.”
In at least one part of her creative practice, that sense of privacy extends even to her closest collaborators.
“I never record in front of anybody,” she says. “[Even] Tim has never seen me record a day in his life.” Early on she worked with an engineer, but for many years now she has recorded her parts alone — with two exceptions. “It’s just me and my little Yorkies, Poncho and Hoodie.”
We never knew she never recorded in front of anybody. That’s kinda crazy. We’re glad Missy is back though and hope she stays in great health.