Elliott has learned to appreciate the project
Missy Elliott had a successful run with her debut album and that naturally put tremendous pressure on her while working on her sophomore LP, Da Real World, as she eyed to match her initial performance. The rapper recently discussed the difficulties of creating the 1999 record on Variety.
“That album was stressful,” she revealed. “That was my most stressful album. And I appreciated that album later. It was the most stressful because if you know anything about the periods of albums and the second album, we call it the sophomore jinx, and so especially if you have a successful first album, you are stressed out because you’re chasing trying to be that first album.”
She went on, “So that album was successful for me, that first album, so I was trying to find something that was going to be bigger than ‘The Rain,’ visually and sonically. Years later, I look back on that and that was probably one of the most creative [periods] because it was theatrics mixed in with Hip Hop. If you listen to a lot of the songs, it’s a lot of strings. I don’t want to say dark strings, but very theatrical, very dramatic strings happening.
“Everything was very dramatic. And so I can appreciate that album as one of my tops because at that time, it was stressful but when I look back, I’m like, damn, we were in a pocket, a different kind of pocket that was amazing to blend the two because it was Hip Hop but it still had the theatrics to it.”
