The Guardian - 30.08.2019

• The Guardian
  2 Friday 30 August 2019

Jack Peñate

Prayer

Following Sam

Smith’s return, the

George Michael

revival continues with

Peñate’s comeback,

a lovely, rough-hewn

gospel meditation

on self-delusion and

self-loathing.

Vagbon

Water Me Down

Laetitia Tamko sings

of lessons learned

from love lost, the

strength of her hope

matched by optimistic,

airy synth-pop that

builds in intensity and

determination.

Pusha T (ft Lauryn Hill)

Coming Home

Coming Home fi nds

Pusha defending black

boys from the prison

industrial complex,

paired with dreamy

verses from Lauryn

Hill and vintage Kanye

production.

Floating Points

Last Bloom

There’s a touch of

Aphex’s intricacy to this

glimmering tapestry

of organic tones. They

gradually come to

crackle with urgency,

softness swapped for

stark isolation.

Sudan Archives

Confessions

The Los Angeles

violinist juxtaposes the

sharpness of her playing

with the dreaminess

of her voice as she

confesses to painful

truths.

Pelada

Atrejo

Pelada put an avant-

garde spin on cyberdog

chaos, giving their

battering-ram beats

a junkyard patina

electrifi ed by Chris

Vargas’s powerful

Spanish vocals.

A$AP Rocky

Babushka Boi

A$AP Rocky’s fi rst

release since leaving

Swedish jail doesn’t

comment on his legal

troubles; instead, he

celebrates his affi nity

with Scarface.

Ranked!

Missy

Elliott

solo

singles

1

Get Ur Freak On (2001)

A close-run thing, but Get

Ur F rea k On just shades it

as Missy Elliott’s greatest

single. A supremely confi dent

Top 10 masterclass in being

simultaneously audacious

and commercial, its relentless

six-note sample – bhangra

with a hint of drum’n’bass –

keeps dropping out, leaving

space in which Elliott can

roar, whisper and shush her

detractors. Horror-movie-

soundtrack electronics hover

in the background, while voices

speaking in Hindi and Japanese

weave in and out. And Elliott

is on fi re: there is something

about the don’t-even-try

message to her competitors

that feels bound up with the

way Get Ur Freak On sounds:

an artist who knows she

has made a strange,

groundbreaking, utterly

compelling masterpiece.

2

Work It (2002)

Infl uenced by old school hip-hop

• it samples Run DMC and Rock
  Master Scott & the Dynamic
  Three alongside Blondie’s Heart
  of Glass – but with its eyes fi xed
  on the future, Work It’s mélange
  of backward vocals, elephant
  samples and lyrics that would
  later have been labelled “body
  positive” is totally fantastic:
  joyous and ahead of its time.

5

Lose Control (2005)

By now, Elliott and Timbaland

were adept at the business of

making hugely exciting hits out

of deeply unlikely ingredients.

Lose Control variously features

80s electro-inspired synths

and a drum machine, Ciara

sweetly cooing an old-fashioned

R&B hook and Fatman Scoop

shouting his head off. Shouldn’t

work; does perfectly.

6

WTF (Where They

From ) (2015)

After a sporadic

series of releases

that failed to

attract much

attention, WTF

was a million-

seller. Pharrell

Williams’ beat

recalls the

Neptunes’ early

00s imperial

phase, while

Elliott sounds

imperious as she

ponders cultural

appropriation

and warns young

pretenders:

“Blah-blah-

blah, you best

go rewrite your

bars.”

10

We Run This (2006)

For all its forward-thinking,

Elliott’s sound frequently paid

homage to hip-hop’s roots.

Never more so than here: We

Run This is a thrilling reworking

of Michael Viner’s Incredible

Bongo Band’s b-boy anthem

Apache, tricked out with a

blaring horn section, fi lled with

call-and-response vocals that

sounds like a guaranteed

party-starter.

4

The Rain (Supa-

Dupa Fly) (1997)

It is worth

considering the

hip-hop era in

which The Rain

(Supa Dupa Fly)

appeared. It was

the year of Puff

Daddy’s I’ll Be

Missing You, Will

Smith’s Big Willie

Style and Jay-Z’s

pop-facing In My

Lifetime: not the

ideal moment for

a female rapper

clad in a bin

liner to release

a weird, sparse

debut single.

Its Ann Peebles

sample provided

a hook, but more

important was

how boldly it

announced a

stereotype-

smashing, unique

talent.

1

2

3

4

5

3

Pass That Dutch

(2003)

Amid the sonic

pyrotechnics

of her greatest

singles, it is easy

to overlook what

a fantastic rapper

Missy Elliott can

be. The brilliant

Pass That Dutch is

primary evidence

• a sinister,
  sparse backing
  track with a
  Technicolor vocal
  performance: at
  turns insouciant,
  commanding,
  intense and
  very funny,
  complete with a
  faux acceptance
  speech.

Playlist

By Alexis

Petridis

See full list at theguardian.com/music

8

She’s a Bitch (1999)

Despite a $2m video, the fi rst

single from Elliott’s second

album, Da Real World, was a

relative fl op, which may have

had less to do with its quality

than the sonic risks Elliott and

Timbaland were taking. She’s a

Bitch is str ipped back to a lmost

nothing, a two-note riff that

repeats throughout, and some

abstract electronic strings: it is

all it needs.

7

Hot Boyz

(1999)

The best single

from Da Real

World. All who

appear on the

remix – Nas,

Q-Tip, Eve –

turn in stellar

performances,

but the star is

the song itself:

Elliott’s breathy

vocal chafi ng

against the

lyrics’ hard-

eyed monetary

concerns; the

backing, with

its low-key but

addictive steel

pan sample and

willingness to

let the beat drop

away into silence.

9

Ching-A-Ling (2008)

The saga of Missy Elliott’s

still-unreleased seventh album

• endlessly delayed by ill-health
  and artistic indecision – begins
  here, 11 years ago. A head-
  turning cacophony of airhorns,
  electronic noise and dub-
  infl uenced eff ects complete with
  a retur n to Work It’s back wa rds-
  masked vocals, it is hard not to
  think it would have been a hit six
  years earlier.

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