by Alexandra Fiorentino-Swinton
One of my earliest memories of experiencing FOMO came from listening to Brandy’s “Best Friend,” a four minute and 48 second testimony to the everlasting power of siblinghood in the face of ever-transient friendships. Only children are notoriously independent, but who wouldn’t want a seemingly built-in best friend to be by your side no matter what? Growing up is realizing that this isn’t necessarily the default relationship status for siblings, but the way our culture props up siblings as irreplaceable day-ones inevitably leaves a mark on the psyche of an only child. We frantically seek out that best friend to fortify our sense of belonging and community. Hip-hop has historically been a genre born of such found families, founded on collectives and born of communal spaces of joy and respite like block parties. In fact, it was DJ Cool Herc’s sister Cindy Campbell who planned the historic Sedgwick Avenue party that is widely considered the very birthplace of hip-hop. And despite the many forces working against them, women in hip-hop and R&B often find sisterhood and curate artistic communities.
While under the practically carceral control of then-husband Tommy Mottolla, Mariah Carey found fleeting moments of refuge by breaking out of Mottolla’s gilded prison of a mansion with Da Brat, and the two went on to create collaborative success on tracks like “Heartbreaker.” Lil’ Kim and Mary J Blige’s friendship is storied both on and off the mic, and has resulted in iconic tracks like “I Can Love You” and music video features like “No Matter What They Say” and the “Not Tonight” remix. And friend to all of the above, featured on both “Heartbreaker” and “Not Tonight,” and co-star of the “No Matter What They Say” video is musical genius, feminist icon, and only child Missy Elliott. The aforementioned collabs are mere drops in the bucket of Missy’s long history of lifting up other women in hip-hop and R&B, and at a time where the general ethos around women in hip-hop was that there could only be one.
Having begun her career in in girl group Sista (originally named Fayze), as a member of DeVante Swing’s Swing Mob collective, and later solidifying her circle of frequent collaborators in the Supafriends spin-off group, Elliott’s entire career has been about showing—and loudly telling—the world how much love she has for her chosen family. In particular, for her chosen sisters, as the vast majority of her songwriting and producing credits are for other women. As much as Elliott’s jubilant exclamations on songs she wrote and produced—“new Monica!” on “So Gone,” “new Trina!” on “No Panties,” “new Keyshia!” on “Let It Go”—became a social media meme, it’s brought newfound recognition to Elliott’s continued reverence for her peers. And her social media accounts are full of nothing but love, light, and of posts of appreciation for her peers. While mass individualism and aloofness have become en vogue, Missy Elliott has remained a torchbearer for the value of earnestness.
A notable Afrofuturist, Elliott’s work embodies the idea that, as Ytasha Womack claims, "Afrofuturism is a free space for women, a door ajar, arms wide open, a literal and figurative space for black women to be themselves. They can dig behind the societal reminders of blackness and womanhood to express a deeper identity and then use this discovery to define blackness, womanhood, or any other identifier in whatever form their imagination allows." The “Sock It To Me” music video is an Afrofuturist ode to Black women—co-starring Lil' Kim and Da Brat, it casts Black women as the protagonists of a technological future. It’s representative of Elliott’s own groundbreaking status as a successful Black woman in the writing and production side of music and her penchant for supporting other Black women in breaking various technological and genre barriers.
One of the most inextricable pieces of Elliott’s legacy is her hallowed friendship and musical partnership with the late Aaliyah. In 2002, Missy described Aaliyah as her little sister, stating “Our relationship went beyond the work we did together. We felt we had created a new sound, but it wasn’t like we just did records and that was it. It was more of a family vibe than just work. We could tell each other anything.” Through their shared passion for their respective crafts, their sisterhood manifested as a series of timeless, genre-defying, generation-defining collaborations. Alongside Timbaland, Elliott and Aaliyah ushered in a modernized, futuristic form of R&B production that changed the genre’s music and aesthetics indefinitely, and to this day artists follow the sonic playbook they wrote.
In front of the mic, Elliott and Aaliyah released a few collaborations, including “Best Friends,” an ode to sisterly love in the face of said sister’s infatuation with unworthy men. But more pertinent to the depth of their friendship is “Take Away,” Missy Elliott, Tweet, and Ginuwine’s song about Aaliyah. A tearjerker of the highest caliber, the lyrical content of "Take Away" doubles as a memorial for a departed friend as well as a romantic relationship, which makes it that much more profound. Released two months after Aaliyah’s tragic death in 2001, it deeply understands the value of true kinship and of feeling known.
You may have initially heard of Missy Elliott from hits like “Work It” or “Get Ur Freak On” or endless others, but to really know her career is to be inspired and empowered. Initially, by her well-chronicled innovation and avant-garde brain that is light years ahead of the rest of pop culture. But she’s not only an artist, not only a hype-woman on your other favorite artists’ tracks, but a curator, a conduit for creativity. There’s something about her curation of her musical family, and her eagerness to love them loudly, that always resonated with me.
Only children often crave close connections and we indeed, as “Take Away” pleads, "wanna be the perfect match" for our close friends, and thus "we become so attached," heavily investing in platonic relationships to make our own villages and to make them last. We desperately seek out that Ray J to our Brandy, the person we think was made for us to love and to love us "from the beginning to the end." "Take Away" is a manifesto of hope for those who yearn for more out of their connections, proof that you can find your people—people who will, as the song's dedication states, "bring life to your music."
In 2020, another hit song titled “Best Friend” emerged, featuring two non-related women rapping each other’s praises. This decade has seen women dominate rap, and the largely harmonious landscape of its participants wouldn’t have been possible without Missy Elliott's insistence that there was room for every last woman at the table.
Born without a biologically built-in cohort of peers, Elliott worked to curate a personal and professional environment founded on sisterhood, and her then-novel outlook diffused across her friends and collaborators. Missy Elliott helped turn a generation of little girls into eager consumers of hip-hop, assuring us we had a place here, and as I, now 22, enter into the adult world, her continuous exaltation of her found family makes me excited to find and love my own lifelong sisters.