Missy Elliott: the biggest female force in hip-hop and five-time Grammy winner Missy Elliott is back with a hit record, "The Cookbook." Here she talks about her recipes for success

MATT DIEHL: You experienced a lot of rejection early in your career. What were those experiences like, and how did you move on?

MISSY ELLIOTT: Oh, God, those experiences were the worst. In the beginning, I was in a girl group called Sistah that was signed under Elektra before I was signed as a solo artist. So to be in this girl group, I had to move away from home in Virginia, and I'm a Southern girl, and I'm in this big city, and everything seems tall, and my family's like, "Whatcha doing? When's your video coming out?" So, we were about to finish our album when they dropped us from the label. That was hard for me because we put so much time and effort into that album. We even shot a first video, and to feel like we had to start all over again was difficult. But I felt like it was something that I had in me.

MD: Do you think being rejected helped you?

ME: Being rejected can be a negative thing, but if you believe in yourself, then it's an automatic drive. It's like, "You shut the door in my face and now look!" I know that Alicia Keys, who was let go by Columbia Records, is looking at them now like, "Ya held me up over here and now look--I'm selling all these records."

MD: Columbia also dropped 50 Cent.

ME: Exactly. You immediately see the people who are driven by that.

MD: We should talk about your new record, The Cookbook [Goldmind/Atlantic].

ME: I honestly believe that it's my best album. I know everybody always says that the album they have coming out is their best, but I never said that about any of my other albums. I feel like I'm developing, and I got more to say. I want people to know more about Missy.

MD: What about Missy?

ME: You got question after question. Are you writing these down as you go along?

MD: No, I'm freestyling.

ME: Well, I'm not bringing people into my personal life--my personal business is my personal business. But as a hip-hop artist, where I come from, it is all about battling--what you can do and what your skills are about. That's why there is a lot of singing on this album. I've always sung on my albums, but I guess when you get older you feel like you can't just stay in one lane, and you give people dosages of different things along the way.

MD: Your last album, This Is Nora Test! [2003], talked a lot about role models. Did you feel the need to get more politically conscious on this one?

ME: You know, you go through different times as an artist when you feel what's happening in the moment--and in that moment I felt like what I was saying was needed. But with kids, you have to draw back sometimes and not preach so much, because you can scare them away. I realized you have to reel them in a bit because it can almost get like you're a parent walking through the school dance with pamphlets or something. With kids, you have to go in and dance with them first, and then by the end of the dance, you have to say, "How about church on Sunday?"

Matt Diehl is a contributing music editor for Interview.

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