It’s been 10 years since the last Missy Elliott album, and her return to the public eye with “WTF (Where They From)” is an unexpectedly huge breath of fresh air. Pharrell Williams’ production fits Elliott perfectly - it’s always shifting, dangerous, tasteful, plastic, colorful. Descending bass hits trigger indecipherable samples and airhorns; Elliott’s flow on top is memorable as she lingers on the last word of a line, “The dance that you doing is dumbbbbb, how they do it where you from?” The lyrics themselves are scathing and convicted, a middle finger to the Miley Cyrus-led wave of cultural appropriation as well as a justification of her own return. “Ugh, I’m so far ahead of y’all,” she mentions among a barrage of memorable lines. She certainly
