LOS ANGELES (AP) – At a 24,000-square-foot studio near downtown Los Angeles, Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes and Ciara are preparing to film the video announcement for a tour no one saw coming.
This summer, the trio – along with legendary producer Timbaland – will hit the road for Elliott’s first headlining arena tour, appropriately titled Out of This World – The Missy Elliott Experience.
“Listen, I didn’t realise I never had my own tour,” said a smiling Elliott. “The last real tour that I went on – like, consistent days – was with Beyoncé and Alicia (Keys).”
That was in 2004.
Call it long overdue, but the timing is ideal. Over the last few years, Elliott – the forward-seeking artiste – has been recognised for her talents as a musician, producer, songwriter and beyond.
In 2019, she became the first female rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the MTV Video Music Awards. In 2021, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2022, her hometown of Portsmouth, Virginia, named a boulevard after her. Last year, she became the first female hip-hop artiste inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“Getting those accolades, I feel like I’ve finally made it,” Elliott said. “It feels amazing. I feel so blessed.”
“What we’re seeing now is kind of the rest of the world catching up,” said Mona Scott-Young, Elliott’s longtime manager and co-producer of the tour. “She’s always been ahead.”
In his green room, Busta Rhymes tells the AP that a tour had never come up in conversation across his decades of friendship and collaboration with Elliott. (He’s the intro and outro voice on her canonical debut album, 1997’s Supa Dupa Fly. They’ve long since been inseparable).
“She doesn’t really tour and she doesn’t perform often. I just kind of understood my sister – the unspoken thing,” he said. “You knew that if she decided to do this, go to the place where she was actually ready to tour, and one thing Missy never did was play with her production. And you saw that in everything she did, from her shows to her videos.”
He continued, “Missy will turn down USD10 million to do a show… She’s super in control of her destiny in that way, and without compromise, is what made her super incredibly great.
You can’t do nothing but love her for that. She’s a true artiste in the purest form of the word.”
And make no mistake, this isn’t a nostalgia tour.
“We are in the best spaces in our lives, individually and collectively, we’re at the most experienced spaces in our lives,” Rhymes said. “We’re no longer Daniel-san. We’re now all Mr Miyagi senseis. You know what I’m saying? We’re all at our perfection levels of what we’ve been doing and building together as a collective family for 30 years.”
Elliott echoed the sentiment.
“The line-up feels something special,” said Elliott. “It’s family. It’s not put together.”
On set, the trio are styled by longtime collaborator June Ambrose – all-black looks, like if the Avengers were impeccably dressed and made up of R&B and hip-hop legends. They take photos as a group and individually.
After her solo photo shoot, Ciara starts to tear up.
“When I was a little girl, a little artiste coming up, and you would ask me, ‘Who inspires you?’ I would infuse a combination of people: Michael Jackson and Prince and I would say Missy Elliott. She’s one of the best performers of all time,” she said.
But ask her if there will be any on-stage collaborations – Elliott wrote and was featured on Ciara’s huge hit 1, 2 Step; Ciara’s on Elliott’s Lose Control – she laughed. “Missy’s very particular. I don’t want to ruin any surprises,” she said. “I think from beginning to end, people will be on their feet. All of us have a lot of energetic records.”
