The past couple of years have been pretty eventful for Missy Elliott as far as awards and honors go.
Because in 2018 she was the first female rapper to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. She also received an honorary doctor of music degree from Berklee College of Music in Boston in May of this year. Plus, on Monday, she was honored with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards.
If you thought the Virginia raised-artist should’ve received the Vanguard Award a long time ago, you wouldn’t be alone. Because it’s something Sway Calloway said he believed when Elliott stopped by his show “Sway in the Morning” earlier this week.
But the “Work It” rhymer said Monday was the perfect time to receive the honor, as opposed to years ago. Because along with the award being handed out, the honoree also performed and Elliott said the technology wasn’t available for her to put on the kind of show she wanted until now.
Elliott used an array of dazzling effects for the MTV performance, like having a rain storm right on stage and a monstrous-sized spaceship that flew over the crowd. She also performed a string of her hits, such as “Get Ur Freak On” and “Supa Dupa Fly.”
“I’m glad that it didn’t [happen before Monday],” she explained. “When you have that [spiritual] connection like that, you can see the time wasn’t then, and the time was now. ‘Cause one of the things that I said is technology, they didn’t have that for those other award shows. And for the type of performer that I am and the type of performance I wanted to give, I needed what happened yesterday.”
“When you saw that spaceship hovering over the crowd like that and people being sucked into it. So, yeah, I believe it’s God’s time that I’m on,” she added.
Elliott also talked about her new EP “Iconology” that she dropped on August 23, her first collection of songs since 2005’s “The Cookbook.”
“It’s a study of visuals,” she said, explaining the definition of Iconology. “I believe I’m an artist of visuals. … And just how to be an icon.”
