Missy Misdemeanor Elliott: Da Real World

Missy Elliott might not have been the first self-assured female MC when her 1997 debut Supa Dupa Fly came out, but she came on strong enough to seem like nothing that had come before. That album broke new ground, as much for Elliott and Timbaland's stripped-down, offbeat, staccato rhythms as for Elliott's no-bullshit stance. But as fascinatingly outside the box as her work on Supa Dupa Fly is, the album doesn't always avoid repeating itself, and with the Timabland/Elliott style all over the radio these days—both in their work for others and in the work of producers following their lead—can a new Elliott album still be relevant She puts that question to rest pretty early on in Da Real World. Again working closely with Timbaland, the duo neatly expands the boundaries of the formulas they created in '97; the sound remains in essence the same, but the apparently bare-bones production reveals more with each listen. Da Real World also finds Elliott asserting herself more as a performer: On Fly, she occasionally got lost in the mix, and her strong-woman persona was as much an implication as a fact. Here, she spends the album claiming the word "bitch" as her own, sticking it to both beat biters (on the song "Beat Biters") and unworthy men (just about everywhere else). Littered with such guest stars as Redman, Eminem, Big Boi, Lil' Kim, and many more, Da Real World does occasionally feel like a "Missy & Friends" album, but none of them seem out of place. More problematic is that World, like its predecessor, runs out of steam after a while, but a few weak tracks toward the end hardly negate what's come before, a satisfying follow-up that fulfills the promise of Elliott's debut.