Missy Elliott on Making ‘Get Ur Freak On’ — the Century’s Best Song

Missy Elliott is “super-excited and thankful” that Rolling Stone just named 2001’s “Get Ur Freak On” the greatest song of the 21st century so far — and as the legendary artist reveals on our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, she’s also looking toward the future. For the first time since the 2019 EP Iconology, Elliott is working on new music, and is hoping to get back on the road again soon as well. “I have something in the works,” she says of her recent time in the studio. “It’s just different. It’s me being experimental again… I got some stuff coming. Some fire.”

She’s also eager to follow up the success of her belated first-ever headlining tour, 2024’s Out of This World — The Missy Elliott Experience, a 30-date arena run. “Hopefully the spaceship will go back out again,” she says. “I remember when I first said it, everybody thought that I was playing and I was like, ‘No, I’m really gonna go out.’… And I really went out. So hopefully that happens again soon.” To hear our entire interview with Elliott, which goes deep on the making of “Get Ur Freak On,” go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above. Some highlights follow.

“Get Ur Freak On” nearly didn’t happen — Timbaland was exhausted and ready to leave the studio when Elliott insisted her album needed one more song. “He just started hitting anything,” she says. “He was bamming on the keyboard ’cause he was ready to go. 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.”

Elliott, who grew up in Virginia, got the idea for the chant-like hook from the go-go scene in Washington, D.C. “I feel like I was at one of those go-go jams,” Elliott says, “and they’re always chanting something, and I was like, ‘Oh man, I need to do a song like this.’ …  If you keep it simple, then people are gonna be able to [sing along].” 

She was picturing choreography as she wrote the song. “I’ve spent so much time around dancers,” she explains. “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.”

She heard something almost gothic in Timbaland’s beat, which is reflected in the song’s video. “When I’m creating records… I’m already visually seeing what that video could be,” Elliott says. “If I don’t see it visually, then the record never comes out. It was like listening to a hip-hop thriller — like, not Michael Jackson Thriller, ’cause that’s just unbeatable, but just a hip-hop scary movie.”

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