LogFAQs > #957336001

21. Missy Elliott Get Ur Freak On (2001)
from the album Miss E So Addictive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNGQiCDKxVM

Key lyrics:
Quiet! Hush your mouth
Silence when I spit it out
Hah-choo! In your face
Open your mouth, give you a taste

Missy Elliotts signature surrealism reached its zenith with Get Ur Freak On. The production here is out of this world even 20 years on, it shows no sign of age. Timbaland picked up the beat while travelling through India, using a tumbi and tabla to help create a sound rarely seen in mainstream popular music. Stretching beyond bhangra, an ominous synthesizer rises during the chorus. Mix in Missys rapping skills, and you get something as totally unique as it is immediately effective.

Missy Elliott knew exactly what Timbaland had captured the lyrics essentially find her bragging about the imminent success she has on her hands. Not to be outdone by the music, her own delivery blows it away. This is a song loaded with sudden stops. Missy absolutely commands the scene, interrupting the groove but never losing the rhythm. Few songs have used silence so effectively Missy Elliott makes dance music as much as she makes hip hop, but she demands spectacle. To actually meaningfully make something out of the energy Get Ur Freak On presents requires true inspiration on the dancefloor.

Hidden beneath all this energy is an understated tension. The synthesizer never quite steals the scene, but its creeping presence makes itself felt. Meanwhile, during the third verse, the lead instrument slowly but surely transforms into something I can only compare to the horror strings of a Carpenter film. In an unusual twist for hip hop, Get Ur Freak On has an extended instrumental outro that just lets tension build. Missy Elliott typically leans toward the more playful side of hip hop, and while Get Ur Freak On was constructed in a similar vein, the final result is so extreme that little else compares.

---

My top 100 games (with write-ups): https://foolfantastic.com/top-100-video-games-project/