Missy Elliott has revealed that her iconic 2001 hit, Get Ur Freak On, almost never came to fruition.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the rapper and R&B legend explained that the track nearly didn’t make it onto her groundbreaking third studio album Miss E… So Addictive due to producer Timbaland being exhausted and ready to call it a day in the studio.
“He just started hitting anything,” she said. “He was bamming on the keyboard ’cause he was ready to go.”
Despite Timbaland’s fatigue, Elliott persisted, insisting that the album needed one more track.
“And he hit something and I was like, ‘That’s it right there.’ And he was like, ‘What? What you talking about?’ I just went in the booth and did the record,” she stated.
As she was writing the song, Elliott also visualised the choreography that would accompany it.
“I’ve spent so much time around dancers,” she explained. “From my first time on tour, I had 22 dancers… When I’m doing that record, I’m thinking of my dancers. I could just see them moving to it.”
Rolling Stone named Get Ur Freak On the greatest song of the 21st century so far in October.
Elsewhere in the interview, Elliott, who last released a collection of tracks with the 2019 EP Iconology, teased that she’s working on new music.
“I have something in the works,” she told the publication. “It’s just different. It’s me being experimental again… I got some stuff coming. Some fire.”
