- I tell this story over and over again.
I used to take like my Baby Alives,
all my doll babies and sit 'em up against a wall
and imagine that they were screamin' for me.
And I would just get louder and louder.
And in mind, I just seen 'em clappin'.
And my mother would come in there
and she wouldn't even bother me
'cause she knew I was like, on stage
and so she'd just be like, "Okay baby."
And I used to tell her like,
"Imma make a lotta money."
She be like, "You betta go on in the Army."
- [Narrator] Here we go ladies, here we go.
Ready, and, action!
(electronic music)
- Me and Timbaland relationship is special
because he's the only one that understands me
and I think I'm the only one that understands him.
Both of our minds is like in the year 2000.
We are both futuristic.
And we're both, I think, put here
in this industry to change the radio.
And that's why we click so good
'cause we know that like, the radio is stuck right now.
Everything sound the same.
As far as video-wise, everything look the same.
So we feel like we comin' in
and we gonna change the whole thing.
The Rain, as far as R&B and rap,
I think that that particular video
was most definitely I can't forget hype.
I think with both of our creativity together,
it made a lot of people go back in
and say let's make it more visual.
It was just somethin' different.
I think it was a very risky video.
But by like, MTV noticin' it
and other video stations noticin' it and startin' to play it
I think everybody, it wasn't risky anymore.
Everybody was like, "Oh man, this video is hot!"
We openin' up for people to not be so insecure
about comin' out as an entertainer with weight on 'em.
Like, everybody at one point felt like
they had to be a certain size.
I would like to see more females havin' their own labels
and runnin' companies, bein' more business-minded,
handlin' they business.
- [Interviewer] Now we're gettin' ready
to drop your record pretty soon, is that right?
- Yep!
- What's the street date on that right now?
- I dunno the exact date, it's in May.
And the title of the album is "She's a Bitch."
(laughs)
So remember that and I'm a bitch of power.
And I think this gonna be the year of the bitches.
From Lil' Kim to Mary J. Blige, from Lauryn to Erykah Badu
I believe that sometimes you gotta be a bitch
to get to a certain point.
This is a male-dominated field
and sometimes if you not that bitch,
people'll take advantage of you.
And it's a bitch in a positive way,
not a negative way of using bitch.
- [Interviewer] Yeah bitch is obviously a word
that men often use in relation to strong--
- It's strong!
- Women and it's seen as being a very derogatory term.
But you're reclaiming it, is that the idea?
- Right, exactly, exactly.
We on some just some crazy stuff.
Y'all know how I do.
Each time I gotta come a little different,
and this my first video from the last one,
the running. I mean not the first one but like
for my second album, so had to come different.
Something new about my music...
It's past the millennium.
It's not, you know everybody tryin to make songs
that's for the millennium,
I think I been ahead of the millennium or whatever,
I had been after death before Christ, you know
all of that (laughs) you know?
I try to make music that is far ahead
and with the blessing of God
I'm a keep making music, banging music, so, whatever.
(laughs)
I think dance do play a lot more in hip hop now.
People wanna go to the club and they
just wanna have fun, instead of it being so violent.
Like we went through our time of just shoot 'em up,
whatever, and now everybody just wanna get in there
and dance and have fun.
And I know that's what I wanna do when I get in the club.
Actually there's some new hot dances that I made up,
called Get Your Freak On, and then in this video
we got one called the Church Lady.
So hopefully that becomes the dance in the club,
the Church Lady and the Get Your Freak On.
Yeah I want people to see that I'm the same, you know.
Don't get it side-tracked and then think,
"Okay now she done lost all this weight
she's 'bout to be like this person or like
that person."
I'm still gonna give my fans and listeners just
the same ol' Missy.
When I did the Work It video, I just pretty much
did that video the way I do all the rest of my videos.
I guess I don't even think regular, even when I say
"Well, lemme just get a bunch of dancers" it's just
too regular.
So I always gotta come up with something else.
But it wasn't that I tried to out-do the last video,
or the video before that, this is just the way my mind is.
And even this time, even with being nominated for eight,
I won't be mad, I'll just be used to it like,
"Hey I didn't get it again? (beep)" (laughs)
But I'm happy with being nominated eight times,
it's a blessing.
- I'm here in the one-on-one room with the happiest crew
I think, in the house.
Timbaland, Tweet, Dave, and Missy Elliott.
Congratulations. - Thank you.
- Video of the Year, Best Hip Hop, it is about time.
How does it feel, finally, to be a VMA winner on your own?
- God it's a blessing, it's a blessing.
Still in shock.
- Now you guys seem to make a perfect team together,
Dave and Missy, what seems to work so well with you guys
in the videos?
- We play in the same sandbox.
- (laughs)
- (laughs) You guys are nice to each other,
you share your toys?
- Yes, yes we both have the same crazy mind,
I believe it is, yeah.
- Well thank you, congratulations.
- I know for a fact that my videos
come from being isolated in the room.
My mother wasn't the type to let me go hang out
with friends all the time so I basically stayed
in this one room, like I said, just creatin'
a world of my own, that just went with me to my adult years.
And still, when I go to think about videos, it's like I get
in one room and I isolate myself from everybody.
Whether it's the maids, the maids can be vacuuming
around me, cleaning, dusting, and I'm just in that
one space in my room and just zoning like I would do
when I was a kid.
- [Director] Okay hold that, cut!
Okay we got it.
(upbeat music)