Missy Elliott on Her New Album and Manifesting Her Dreams
The artist, who's ready to drop long-awaited new music, redefined hip-hop vocally and visually—and lifting up other artists only burnishes her superstar legacy.This spring, Melissa Arnette Elliott stood before a mass of Berklee College of Music students and faculty in Boston. She requested a moment to gather herself. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and tears began to fall freely over her smiling face. She opened her eyes.
“I went to the side of my grandmother’s house where I used to play church. I used to shout and sing all kinds of gospel songs. Ones I had made up, ones that existed in the church...I was at that place.” Elliott considers herself a very spiritual person. For her, “God is real because I went to that place and felt like he had his hands on me from a child.”
She says she’s used to the doubt in her ability or trajectory. She knew what she wanted to do for the rest of her life when she was in kindergarten. “This is why you have to listen to kids. I knew what I wanted. I remember.” Elliott says her teacher asked the class what they wanted to be every week. Her classmates’ minds did change often, though the list of possible futures they considered stayed roughly the same: “I want to be a fireman.” “I want to be a teacher.” “I want to be a doctor.
Versace puffer coat and jacket; Jennifer Fisher earrings; Bulgari coin necklace; David Yurman chain necklace; Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood leaf necklace; David Webb ringsThe music she created became her refuge. Life had not been easy for Elliott pre-stardom. In her 2011 VH1 Behind the Music documentary, she and her mother detail how her father was physically abusive to her mother, as well as the sexual abuse by a cousin she experienced when she was eight.
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