Melissa Arnette Elliott better known as Missy Elliott, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, MC, and record producer. Elliott was originally known as Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott and sometimes with only one "t". She dropped the "Misdemeanor" from her stage name in 2002, and now simply goes by "Missy Elliott". With record sales of over 24 million, she is the highest selling female rapper of all time.
Elliott is known for a series of hits including "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)", "Hit 'Em Wit Da Hee", "Get Ur Freak On", "One Minute Man", "Work It", "Pass That Dutch" and "Lose Control". In addition she has received recognition as one of the most successful songwriters of the modern music era, having crafted a number of hit records for artists such as Aaliyah, Monica, Fantasia, Nelly Furtado, and Tweet, often with production-partner and childhood friend Timbaland.
She was the fourth female rapper to ever go platinum, behind Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown, and Da Brat. She is the only female rapper to have six platinum albums.
Despite her close collaborators and producers being involved in hip hop rivalries/feuds, Missy Elliott has never taken part in any hip hop rivalry. Close collaborators and producers who have been involved in hip hop rivalries/feuds include Timbaland, Jay-Z, and Lil' Kim.
Missy Elliott has produced songs mainly for females including Monica, Destiny's Child, Whitney Houston, Tweet, MC Lyte, Lil' Mo, Tamia, Mary J. Blige, and herself, among others.

Early Life
In the late-1980s, Missy Elliott, LaShawn Shellman, Chonita Coleman, and Radiah Scott formed an R&B group called Sista, for which Elliott served as a singer and songwriter. She recruited her neighborhood friend Timothy Mosley as the group's producer and began making demo tracks. In 1991, Sista caught the attention of Jodeci member/producer DeVante Swing by performing Jodeci songs acapella for him backstage after one of his group's concerts. In short order, Sista moved to New York City, now signed to Elektra Records through DeVante's Swing Mob imprint. Elliott took Mosley (whom DeVante re-christened Timbaland) and their friend Melvin "Magoo" Barcliff along with her.
All 20-plus members of the Swing Mob, among them future stars such as Ginuwine, Playa, and Tweet, lived in a single two-story house in New York and were often at work on material both for Jodeci and for their own projects. While Elliott (credited as Melissa "baby eater" Elliott) wrote and rapped on Raven-Symoné's debut album's lead single "That's What Little Girls Are Made Of", she also contributed songwriting duties, credited and uncredited, to the final two Jodeci albums: 1993's Diary of a Mad Band and 1995's The Show, The After Party, The Hotel. Timbaland and DeVante produced a Sista LP, 4 All the Sistas Around the World, completed in 1994. Though videos were released for the original and remix versions of the single "Brand New," the album was shelved and never released. By 1995, Swing Mob had folded and many of its members dispersed; Elliott, Timbaland, Magoo, Ginuwine, and Playa remained together and collaborated on each others' records for the rest of the decade.

Career
After leaving Swing Mob, Elliott and Mosley (Timbaland) worked together as a songwriting/production team, crafting tracks for acts including SWV ("Can We?" 1997) and 702 ("Steelo" and its remix), but the most notable of them was Aaliyah. Elliott and Timbaland wrote and produced nine tracks for Aaliyah's second album, One in a Million (1996), among them the hit singles "If Your Girl Only Knew," "One in a Million," "Hot Like Fire," and "4 Page Letter." Elliott contributed background vocals and/or guest raps to nearly all of the tracks on which she and Timbaland worked. One in a Million went double-platinum and made stars out of the production duo.
Elliott and Timbaland continued to work together for other artists, later creating hits for artists such as Total ("What About Us," 1997), Nicole Wray ("Make It Hot," 1998), and Destiny's Child ("Get on the Bus," 1998), as well as one final hit for Aaliyah, "I Care 4 U" before her death in 2001.
Elliott began her career as a featured vocalist rapping on Sean "Puffy" Combs's Bad Boy remixes to Gina Thompson's "The Things That You Do" (which had a video featuring cameo appearances by Notorious B.I.G and Puff Daddy), and MC Lyte's 1996 single "Cold Rock a Party." Combs had hoped to sign Elliott to his Bad Boy record label. She instead signed a deal with Elektra Records in 1996 to create her own imprint, The Goldmind Inc., for which she would record as a solo artist. Timbaland was again recruited as her production partner, a role he would hold on most Elliott solo releases.

Supa Dupa Fly and Da Real World
In the center of a busy period making guest appearances and writing for other artists, Elliott's debut album, Supa Dupa Fly, was released in mid-1997. The year also saw Elliott perform live at The MTV Video Music Awards show on a remix to Lil' Kim's "Not Tonight" with fellow rappers Da Brat and Angie Martinez and TLC-rapper Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes.
In 1998, Elliott continued her successful career in the background as a producer and writer on Total's single "Trippin'," as well as working with several others in the hip-hop and R&B communities. The same year, Elliott also produced and made a guest appearance on former Spice Girl Melanie B's, debut solo single "I Want You Back," which topped the UK Singles Chart.

Missy Elliott next released Miss E... So Addictive in 2001. The album spawned the massive pop and urban hits One Minute Man, featuring Ludacris and Trina, and "Get Ur Freak On", as well as the international club hit "4 My People". The double music video for "Take Away/4 My People" was released in the fall of 2001, shortly after the 9-11 terrorist attacks and the tragic death of Elliott's good friend Aaliyah in August.
Elliott's fourth album, 2002's Under Construction, included the aforementioned singles "Work It", Elliott's biggest hit to date, and the successful duet with Ludacris, "Gossip Folks." In the latter, Elliott let her critics know what she thought of recent media rumors about her, including her rapid weight loss that had taken place during 2002 and her alleged affairs with Timbaland, Tweet, and Trina. As the "Work It" video had done during 2002, "Gossip Folks" became one of the most-played music videos on MTV, MTV2, MTV Jams, and BET in 2003. It received significantly less attention than "Work It" at urban radio, but was embraced by the dance community, as well as the mainstream, due to a Fatboy Slim remix. Although not released as single and with no video, "Pussycat", peaked at #77 on the Hot 100. The album is known as the best selling female rap album ever with 2.2 million copies sold in America and 4.5 million copies sold world wide.

A year after Elliott's most successful album to date was released, Elliott felt pressured by her label to release another album, hoping to capitalize on her recent successs. Elliott's singles, "Pass That Dutch" and "I'm Really Hot", from her fifth album, This Is Not a Test! (released November 2003), both rose the urban charts. However, both were not as successful at pop radio in comparison to many of her previous efforts. Elliott has since stated that "This Is Not A Test! came out extremely too quickly for me. I didn't want it to come out when it did."

Following her less than usual sales from her previous album, Elliott "wanted to give people the unexpected" by utilizing producers other than Timbaland and a "more to the center" sound not as far left as her other music. Her sixth solo album, The Cookbook was released in July 2005 and debuted at number two on the U.S. charts. Its first single, "Lose Control", which featured Ciara and Fatman Scoop, became a Top 10 hit in the early summer (peaking at number three on the Billboard Hot 100), and the other album tracks featured guest appearances from Mike Jones, Fantasia, M.I.A., Slick Rick, Mary J. Blige, and Pharrell Williams. The video for "Lose Control" garnered Elliott six 2005 MTV VMA award nominations, ultimately winning two awards in the categories Best Dance Video and Best Hip-Hop Video in August.
In early September, Elliott tore her Achilles' tendon while shooting the music video for her song "We Run This", requiring surgery and a long recovery, thus dampening promotion efforts for The Cookbook. In November 2005, Elliott won Best Female Hip Hop Artist at the 2005 American Music Awards, defeating colleagues Lil' Kim and Trina.
In December 2005, Elliott was nominated for 5 Grammy Awards, including two for "Lose Control" (Best Short Form Video, which she won, and Best Rap Song), one for The Cookbook (Best Rap Album), one for writing Fantasia's "Free Yourself" (Best R&B Song), and one for "1, 2 Step" with Ciara (Best Rap/Sung Collaboration). Elliott was also nominated for Best International Female Artist at the 2006 BRIT Awards.

Respect M.E.
Respect M.E., Elliott's first greatest hits album, was released outside the United States and Canada on September 4, 2006, but only in South Africa, Australia, Europe, Japan, and Brazil. The collection became her second top ten album in the UK and her highest charting album to date, peaking at number seven there. According to BPI it has been certified Gold for sales of over 100,000 units in the UK and 500,000 copies world wide.
The album cover shows Missy Elliott riding a Friesian horse with a dark, cloudy background. The M.E. can be understood as either the word 'me', or could be referring to Missy Elliott. "Respect M.E." is also the name of her clothing line produced by adidas.
"Take Away" did not make the album cut, but was replaced with the more successful Basement Jaxx dance remix of "4 My People". Duet-singles "Car Wash", with Christina Aguilera, and "1, 2 Step" with Ciara, are also missing from the album.

Biographical Film
In mid-June of 2006, Universal Pictures announced they had bought the life story of Elliott and planned to bring it to the big screen. Producers include Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, while the film is being written and directed by Diane Houston. In mid-June of 2007, Elliott said she was still working on the script with Diane Houston in order "to come up with the right stuff cause I don’t want it to be watered down. I want it to be raw and uncut the way my life was"  It's currently unclear whether Elliott will be starring in the movie, with some media outlets publishing her as the star of the movie, no official word has been released.
At one point, it seemed clear that Timbaland won't be a part of it. When Missy asked him to be part of it, he refused because he thinks that it dramatises his character; "the movie is about her life, her story, that goes deeper than putting me into the movie". However, Timbaland has since stated that he would do it if she could get others, including Ginuwine and Magoo, to do it as well.

Discography
1997 - Supa Dupa Fly
1999 - Da Real World
2001 - Miss E ...So Addictive
2002 - Under Construction
2003 - This Is Not a Test!
2005 - The Cookbook
2006 - Respect M.E.

Filmography
1997 - Family Matters
1997 - The Wayans Bros
2001 - Pootie Tang
2003 - Honey
2004 - Fade to Black
2005 - Just for Kicks
2007 - TBA