Two Words, One Answer.
Missy Elliott
 Under Construction $7.98 Like many others out there I heard the Missy Elliott tunes they play on the radio and I thought they were unique but more aimed at the dance/club side of hip hop rather than the Rap side. For that reason, I foolishly dismissed this album back when Missy was the hotest name on the block. Now a few years later I finally downloaded it, threw it on a cd, and started listening to it a couple days ago. I can't believe how much I love this album. I'm actually schocked. To give you some idea of my taste, I'm a 36 year old guy who got hooked on Rap back when it all started. My favorite Rap Artists are BDP and KRS-One, MC Lyte, Run DMC, Beasties, PE, Poor Righteous Teachers, A Tribe Called Quest, Wu Tang Clan, LL Cool J, Eric B & Rakim, EPMD, Slick Rick, Kool Moe D, Digital Underground, Biggie and of course Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five. Well, this album seems to me to be a shout out to the old school rappers I mentioned above. If you are familiar with songs and lyrics from the old schoolers, you'll hear them throughout this album. It's like verbal sampling... instead of sampling the beats from the old songs Missy samples the lyrics. She takes old phrases and drops them into her fresh lyrics with her unique style and you can't help but be impressed with what she is doing. She is clearly paying homage to the old school that has influenced her style and she is doing it by taking the pre-gangsta style of rap and modernizing it while throwing in links to the past that show the song's influence. In listening to this album I felt connected to it. I felt she was saying exactly what I have been feeling since the gangsta rap took over.. And that is "I miss the old school" and I wish an artist today would blow up doing old school style rap. Well, I got my wish in this album. I wish I had given it a chance a few years back so I could have been enjoying it all this time. But I guess better late than never.  This is Not a Test $7.98 I remember when Missy was on 106 & Park promoting this album, they asked her how she got the album done so fast. Missy bluntly replied that her record label made her. (It was released, more or less, just a year after Under Construction. For some reason, instead of trying to promote that excellent album, they stopped everything and made her go back and record another. It goes to show you just how dumb the people at Elekatra Records were. Since then, the record label has fallen to pieces and their artists have been handed over to Atlantic Records. Sylvia Rhone, who used to be the head of Elektra, went to Motown Records and is screwing up eveything there,too.) So probably even Missy knows this is not her best work. The prodcution is nice and I can listen to the whole album without skipping a song, but some just sound plain and rushed. Missy starts doing some of her own production on here, which is alright. Even Timbaland's beats do not sound as fresh. Don't get me wrong... I really like this album, and if anybody else recorded it, it would've been fine. I'm just expressing that this is not her best work ever. As I said before, I can listen to the whole album without skipping, so it is good. (I am not being generous with the rating, it's really four stars.) I would recommend buying this, maybe used, but buy Da Real World or Under Construction before. Those are her two best in my opinion. This is definitely nothing near to her worst, though.  Da Real World $11.98 Rap Fans Need to buy this album or if you dont have any of missys albums Buy this for sure i bought it for $10 and loved it worth the money |
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