Picking up on the drug reference in the title of the former Hefty Bag Queen's third album, we can easily wonder if Missy Misdemeanor Elliott hasn't lately been feeding her head as much as she'd previously fed every other part of her body. "I looked down at my stomach," she deadpans in the liner noters, "and said nope, no 6-pack for me." Then again, such an admission could be interpreted as a commitment to keeping those pounds off.
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In any case, the music on "Miss E . . . So Addictive" is leaner than it was on her first two records. It's also funkier, if that's possible. Timbaland may be the only stateside hip-hop producer who is actually listening to German minimalism and bhangra and two-step and everything else happening in dance music at the moment and not just talking about it. Where the hell did he get that three-note shamisen thing on what I herein nominate as this summer's summer single, "Get Ur Freak On?" "I know you dig the way I swi- swi- switch my style," Missy stammers, in a rare instance of understatement.
As usual, Missy makes it a point to give props to God and girlfriends, but if she were as kinky on her first album as she is here -- check the syncopated go-go sexathon "Scream a k a. Itchin" -- I don't think you would have seen her at Lilith Fair; although, granted, the truly salacious stuff is handled by male guests. Redman and Method Man fill in the juicy details on "Dog in Heat," and Ludacris provides a hilarious rebuttal to the claims of a "One Minute Man" ("It's Ludacris the maintenance man/I check fluids and transmission"). And while Missy isn't about to mount a challenge to Mary J. Blige's title as hip-hop soul sister number one, her R&B chops have become so smooth that I no longer consider it an easy choice as to whether I prefer Missy the rapper or Missy the singer. I'll take 'em both. She may have lost weight, but there's still plenty there to love.