Missy Elliott FYF review – technical blips can't ruin a Supa Dupa Fly return

Ten years after her last performance in the US and 20 years since the release of her album Supa Dupa Fly, Missy Elliott’s performance at FYF festival in Los Angeles proved why she is still peerless. After the avant-garde electronica of Björk (backed by Arca), Elliott’s set was another example of a 90s star whose path has been one of committing to a singular vision without compromise. Unlike Bjork who has continued to perform live and release new music, Elliott’s post-00s output has been limited partly due to her battle with Lupus. Apart from a cameo as part of Katy Perry’s Super Bowl halftime performance in 2015 and a trickle of singles, Elliott has mostly served as an example of an artist who truly pushes the boundaries of R&B and hip-hop.

As the headliner for the first day of FYF fest in Los Angeles, Elliott appeared out of a neon box surrounded by a gaggle of dancers in white outfits with vizors. Beginning with 1999’s She’s A Bitch, she started a rapid fire set that constantly kept moving and felt like an anaerobic workout in places, with Elliott and her dancers demanding crowd participation. There wasn’t much nostalgia paid to her less known hits. Minute Man was rolled into the braggadocious I’m Really Hot, and her Ludacris collaboration Gossip Folks finished off a mini medley.

Her ode to space invaders All N My Grill led into one of the night’s standout moments as Elliott played The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly), the track that introduced her to a worldwide audience. The stuttering Timbaland production was backed by the original video with it’s inflated body suits and cameos from Aaliyah and P Diddy showing it was both of its time but also well ahead of the curve.

After a break dancing interlude from her troupe of rotating dancers, Elliott’s DJ started a strange segue into John Williams’s theme from Jaws. That built up into Get Your Freak On, which got the biggest reaction of the evening from the crowd. Elliott and her hype men restarted the track three times until they were happy with the noise levels and felt they had the required amount of “jumping” from the crowd, but Elliott was visibly out of breath after the track. She caught her breath as there was a video interlude showing her Hype Williams directed back catalog, before Work It set things off again and Elliott turned her hit Pass That Dutch into a mass line dance.

At that point Elliott’s ear pieces had began to malfunction, and the only lull in the evening saw her leave the stage with her DJ retaining the energy by firing through her less well-known collaborations. When Elliott returned she pointed out Tyler, The Creator who was in the front row and whose own DayGlo approach to music owes a debt to Missy. Solange and Beyoncé stood side stage watching a performance that Elliott said might not have happened because she’s been ill recently. That she managed to pull it off while under the weather and command an all-star crowd that are rarely seen in public, shows how rare something like this is.