The singer, rapper and producer has remained as relevant as ever, continuously hitting it in the nail when it comes to new work and collaborations so it wasn’t a huge surprise when she walked up to collect the Video Vanguard Award on Monday night.
The Get Your Freak On singer said: “This Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award means everything to me,” Elliott said. “I have worked diligently for over two decades, and I never thought I’d be standing up here receiving this award. It means so much to me.”
Only this June, Elliott became the first female rapper to ever make it into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, according to Billboard, and as her career has grown so has her net worth with reports that it’s not sitting at a whopping $50 million. The girl has done good.
Elliott has had a pretty epic career to date, with a history of top-selling albums. In 2015 she became the bestselling female rap album artist in Nielsen Music history, shifting 7.6 million albums in the US alone – her most popular being the 2002 album called Under Construction which reached two million sales.
Course, 17 years later Missy Elliott is still in the game and this month released Iconology, a five-track album set to be a top-seller once again.
Aside from her own original music, the rapper has continued to team up with some of the best names in the business – from Mariah Carey and Aaliyah to Destiny’s Child and Katy Perry (remember that 2015 Super Bowl performance?) Elliott has also founded her own label, The Goldmine, and helped produce music for the likes of Beyoncé, Janet Jackson, and more recently, Lizzo and Ariana Grande. So her new tracks are hardly a welcome back – she’s barely taken a break.
If there ever was a timeless female rapper worthy of some serious kudos, it’s Missy Elliott.