I love hiphop.  I’ve always love hiphop.  I grew up listening to the old school stuff, and I like to breathe it in wherever I can find it, and it’s always everywhere and all the time.  It’s still one of the biggest musical industries in the world, and it’s been a global phenomenon for a number of years.  Here, in NYC, it’s got its home, from the origins in the Bronx in the late 1960s, but it’s traveled everywhere.  South Africa, France, Saudi Arabia, and even Germany, are all places where this music rules.  New players come into the game all the time, and there’s a fierce competition here, but there’s also a lot of love and fun for everyone.

But for all the places to travel, I still like to go to New York the best.  It’s got great hotels, and there’s always this old camaraderie that welcomes me back into the fold.  I like to find out what’s new in town, and I like to touch base with how my icons are doing by getting the word on the streets.  One of my all-time favorites is Missy Elliott .  Her work has been some of the most impressive and consistently refreshing music in the genre.  She’s not from New York herself, being from the humble state of Virginia, but she moved here in the early 90s with her group Fayze.

That’s enough to make her a NY hiphop artist, because the years that followed were amazing. This was a remarkable change of life direction, considering how rough her childhood was.  What makes me so impressed with her, though, isn’t just her audacity, although that’s a part of it.  I love her performance of bravado, and even more I love how humble she remains.  She’s never been afraid to team up with good people to get good work made, even if it means she won’t get all the credit.  She’s about the music, and to really make things move forward, you have to get over yourself.

Missy Elliott Works NYC is a post from: Cool Comment