“Have you ever ever had a dream, Neo, that you simply had been so positive was actual?” It’s Act 1 of The Matrix, and Morpheus is laying out the foundations of actuality for Keanu Reeves’ phlegmatic protagonist, providing him a selection. Neo slowly touches a mirror, liquid silver creeping up his arm, engulfing him, ripping him from the simulated life he skilled as actuality and into the “actual” world—an AI-controlled, post-apocalyptic Earth. The Wachowskis’ universe of brain-link tech and teleporting cellphone cubicles warped all people’s perceptions of actuality again in 1999. Now, think about Missy Elliott watching it for the primary time. It was a mindfuck, even for an artist with a equally twisted, futuristic strategy to her craft. Identical to that, she’d discovered a framework for her second album.
By that time, Missy had confirmed herself a hip-hop anomaly in a quickly digitizing world. Early Y2K radio was largely iterative of the envelope-pushing sound she and Timbaland created on her 1997 debut, Supa Dupa Fly. That album, together with the staccato beat-box rhythms on Aaliyah’s One in a Million, made the Virginia duo stand out in a sea of samplers, establishing them because the trade’s sci-fi oddballs crafting out-of-this-world, pop-savvy tracks. Pop music abruptly gave the impression of a dial-up web connection on the fritz, with R&B acts like Ginuwine, Complete, SWV, and 702 serving as clean ciphers for Missy and Timbaland’s wildest concepts. Within the wake of different producers cribbing their model, Da Actual World was an opportunity for Missy to halt the meeting line and construct her mythos, drawing straight from The Matrix. “I’m Morpheus,” a screwed voice (presumably Timbaland) slurs on the album’s intro to remind folks (as in the event that they wanted to) that he and Missy may always shift actuality.
Although darker in tone and fewer whimsical than Supa Dupa Fly, her second album is pushed by the identical fluid melodies and myriad flows, with most of the beats sourced from sounds Timbaland collected after a visit to Japan. The Matrix framing is usually smoke and mirrors right here, peppered calmly in interludes all through. However the film’s key premise—the thought of transcending binaries—possible resonated with Missy and aligns with this challenge’s theme of girls breaking free from reductive labels. In interviews for Da Actual World, Missy typically highlighted a double normal that feels cliché right now: aggressive males are seen as bosses, whereas ladies of the identical ilk are dismissed as bitches or divas. The self-proclaimed shy woman additionally spoke about tapping into “bitch mode” herself to get issues finished. Da Actual World is her personal private insurrection, her egalitarian playground the place she will flex alongside her male friends (Massive Boi, Eminem, Redman, Juvenile, BG), claiming fairness within the sport whereas leaving room for girls in her orbit (Lil Mo, Aaliyah, Lil’ Kim, Da Brat, Woman Noticed, Nicole Wray) to air their frustrations over a Timbaland beat.