Missy Elliott is the first female rapper to receive the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard award — and she deserves it.

On August 26, Missy Elliott was honored as the 2019 recipient of the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard award at the MTV Video Music Awards. Elliott, who rose to fame in the early 2000s as one of the first major female stars in hip-hop, is the first female rapper to receive the award. The award is well deserved, given that the influence of Missy Elliott’s work — especially her creative vision for her music videos — transcends generations and is still evident in popular music today. 

Elliott’s videos are best known for both their visual surrealism and themes of body positivity and sex positivity. Few artists of any era or genre have tried to make themselves look physically unattractive in their music videos on purpose, but in the 1997 video for her song “Rain,” Elliott did just that by using a fish-eye lens and rotating camera to capture herself dancing and rapping in a vacuum-sealed fat suit. 

Soon after, Elliott added boasts of her own sex appeal to her body positivity. Rapping about one’s own sexiness was nothing new in hip-hop at the time, but as a pioneering woman in the genre, Missy Elliott’s lyrics set her apart. The video for 2001’s “Get Your Freak On” is set in a dystopian sewer filled with dance troupes. Elliott’s neck stretches like an elastic band while she dances and raps, but the video is remembered for Elliott’s lyrics: She essentially tells people to hurry up and have sex already. During this time, Elliott wore big fuzzy hats, velvet jogging suits, and gaudy leather ensembles. She had short, spiky hair and wore dark lipstick. As a dark-skinned black woman, this look wasn’t one a mainstream audience at the time would’ve associated with being a sex symbol, but Elliott broke the mold. 

Later that year, Missy Elliott dropped her video for “One Minute Man,” which features Elliott rapping about being sexually unsatisfied. For years, rappers had sexually objectified nameless, faceless women in their lyrics and videos, but “One Minute Man” subverted that sexist trope by putting the onus on men to perform better. 

In 2002, Missy Elliott released what is arguably her best, and definitely most surreal, music video ever: “Work It.” The video takes place in an abandoned playground and barbershop and features Elliott covering her face in bees, superimposing her head on children, and eating a car. The dancers in the video contort their bodies in a way that gives the video an uncanny feeling, melding the line between real and fake and ultimately unifying the two. But in addition to surrealism, Elliott also returns to themes of body positivity. During one section of this video, Elliott leads a crew of dancing women as she raps about how people should stop staring and learn to handle her size. Missy also raps about supporting sex workers, gives specific advice about performing oral sex, and compares herself to Halle Berry. 

In the mid-2000s, Elliott’s stardom plateaued. Her lyrics revolved around her accomplishments as she no longer needed to prove herself or demonstrate why she belonged. The artist had already climbed the mountain of success, and she could now simply bask in her accomplishments. But nevertheless, her extraordinary style had already changed the trajectory of hip-hop music videos.

All artists strive for creativity and distinctiveness, but Elliott’s style is so recognizable that even a decade after her prime, her influence is obvious. The rapper’s brazen sexuality and body positivity have been employed by the likes of Megan Thee Stallion, Nicki Minaj, and Lizzo. Billie Eilish’s tendency to adorn herself in baggy clothes is undeniably similar to Elliott’s early style. Rico Nasty decorates her face and augments her look in the same way as Elliott did. When Kendrick Lamar released the video for his song “Humble” in 2017, his use of surreal computer imagery, like fake fire on people’s heads and exaggerated fish-eye lenses, harkened to Elliott’s work. In fact, Lamar openly attributes his visual style to Elliott. As he stated in a 2017 interview, “You know, just being a kid watching BET, I’d be on the phone with Dave — you know my partner that does the videos with me — and we’d be watching Missy Elliott videos back in high school, and Busta Rhymes videos.They were always big inspirations.” Beyoncé’s Coachella performance in 2018 utilized marching bands and HBCU staples, elements that Elliott had used over a decade prior during her video “We Run This.” 

Few other artists can say they’ve sustained a near 30-year career in hip-hop while remaining influential to other artists all the while. Elliot was one of the first artists to popularize surrealism, body positivity, hyperathletic choreography, and more. As much as hip-hop may continue to change, Elliott’s foundational influence on the genre cannot be shaken — and she more than deserves to be recognized for it.