Music has been important to Missy Elliott all her life. From her earliest recollections of turning up the radio to drown out her parents’ arguments, to singing to her dolls, Missy just loved to write poems and to sing. But in the early 1980s, judging by the videos she saw on MTV, there didn’t seem to be a place for her in hip-hop. The women in hip-hop weren’t singers or songwriters—they were merely set decorations. But after the all-female group Salt-N-Pepa became successful in 1988, Missy thought she could do it too. With countless awards and successful albums to her name, it looks like she was right.

Music has been important to Missy Elliott all her life. From her earliest recollections of turning up the radio to drown out her parents’ arguments, to singing to her dolls, Missy just loved to write poems and to sing. But in the early 1980s, judging by the videos she saw on MTV, there didn’t seem to be a place for her in hip-hop. The women in hip-hop weren’t singers or songwriters—they were merely set decorations. But after the all-female group Salt-N-Pepa became successful in 1988, Missy thought she could do it too. With countless awards and successful albums to her name, it looks like she was right.