Missy Elliott nearly scrapped her now-iconic anthem “Get Ur Freak On” after producer Timbaland was too drained to keep working in the studio, the Hip-Hop pioneer revealed in a new interview.
In a conversation with Rolling Stone, Missy Elliott explained the 2001 hit almost didn’t make it onto her third album, Miss E… So Addictive because Timbaland was ready to call it quits.
“He just started hitting anything,” Missy Elliott said. “He was bamming on the keyboard ’cause he was ready to go.”
But Elliott pushed back, convinced the project needed one last track. That’s when magic struck.
“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 said.
As she laid down the lyrics, Elliott envisioned the choreography that would eventually define the song’s visual identity.
“I’ve spent so much time around dancers,” she said. “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.”
The gamble paid off. In October, Rolling Stone named “Get Ur Freak On” the best song of the 21st century so far, cementing its place in music history.
Elliott, whose last release was the 2019 EP Iconology, also hinted that more music is on the horizon.
“I have something in the works,” she said. “It’s just different. It’s me being experimental again… I got some stuff coming. Some fire.”
“Get Ur Freak On” was released in 2001 and remains one of Elliott’s most celebrated tracks.