Missy Elliott: Thank God for Pharrell
Missy Elliott is giving Pharrell credit for inspiring her comeback. Elliott stepped away from music a decade ago, but a little urging from Skateboard P helped the 44-year-old artist get back in the studio.
In an interview with the UK’s i-D magazine, Elliott admitted to being insecure about returning to the game. “I thank God for somebody like Pharrell who stayed in my ear,” she said.
“After the Super Bowl, he [Pharrell] hit me up like, 'Yo, what are you doing?’ I was basically in the house cleaning! I had gone back to my normal life,” Elliott explained. “I was in the house vacuuming, walking my dogs — after the Super Bowl, I'm just acting normal. He said, 'I'm not trying to push you, but people miss you.’”
Though Elliott was the clear highlight of Katy Perry’s Super Bowl performance, it took her a minute for the fan reaction to “register.” Nonetheless, Pharrell flew her to Los Angeles and they got to work on what would become her “WTF” single.
“We got in the studio and he said, 'Yo! I got this crazy beat.’ You know, Pharrell, he's very zen, very yoga, he's such a sweetheart. But this time, he was straight from the hood, like, 'Yo, I got this crazy record for you, I already wrote my rap, I gotta get your bars now.' So he played it and once he played it, it was like, 'Oh my goodness.' He said, 'I know you gon' kill it.’”
Elliott took the beat home to “live with it” for a while before writing her verses. “When something is so hot, I don't want to just jump on it right away, I want to take it home and make sure I give it my best shot,” she explained. “He [Pharrell] said, 'Listen, just remember who you are. You've always been fun and animated and you have always made people want to dance. Look in the mirror so you can know who you are. It's time. It's your time.'”
Read the rest of the interview here.
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(Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for BET)
