Melissa Arnette "Missy" Elliott is a five-time Grammy Award-winning American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. With record sales of 7.6 million domestically, she is the only female rapper to have six albums certified platinum by the RIAA, including one double platinum (Under Construction).

Elliott is known for a series of hits and diverse music videos including "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)", "Hot Boyz", "Get Ur Freak On", "One Minute Man", "Work It", "Gossip Folks", "Pass That Dutch", "Lose Control" and "Ching-a-Ling".

In addition, Elliott has worked extensively as a songwriter and producer for other artists, both alone and with her producer and childhood friend Timbaland. Elliott's songwriting and production credits include work for a number of other top female artists, among them Aaliyah, Monica, Ciara, Destiny's Child, Mýa, Whitney Houston, Danity Kane, Trina, Nicole Wray, Fantasia, Christina Aguilera, Raven-Symoné, SWV, Melanie Brown, Keyshia Cole, Mariah Carey (co-writer with Carey), Janet Jackson, Lil' Mo and Mary J. Blige.

Elliott was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, to her mother Patricia, and her father, Ronnie, a marine. At the age of four, she wanted to be a "superstar", though she knew no one took her seriously, as she was always the class clown. Elliott had an abusive father, beating her mother almost every day, once pulling a gun out on them both. She would never stay over at a friend's house because she feared she would find her mother dead.

While her father was a marine, the family lived in Jacksonville, North Carolina, in a mobile home. Elliott enjoyed school for the friendships she formed and had little interest in school work, though an IQ test classified her above average and she was able to jump two years ahead of her class. This made her feel increasingly isolated, so she was returned to her class. When her father returned from the marines, they moved back to Virginia, where they lived in a vermin-infested shack.

When Elliott turned 14, relatives convinced her mother that they had to leave. When her father was out one day, a truck arrived outside the house, and her uncles, aunts and cousins helped load the family possessions, leaving her father with a fork, a spoon and a blanket. Elliott and her father occasionally talk, but she claims she hasn't forgiven him. "When we left, my mother realized how strong she was on her own, and it made me strong. It took her leaving to realise."

In 1990 Missy Elliott, La Shawn Shellman, Chonita Coleman, and Radiah Scott formed an R&B group called Sista. She recruited her neighborhood friend Timothy Mosley as the group's producer and began making demo tracks. In 1991, Sista caught the attention of Jodeci member/producer DeVante Swing by performing Jodeci songs a cappella for him backstage after one of his group's concerts. In short order, Sista moved to New York City, signed to Elektra Records through DeVante's Swing Mob imprint. Elliott took Mosley (whom DeVante re-christened Timbaland) and their friend Melvin "Magoo" Barcliff along with her.

All 20-plus members of the Swing Mob, among them future stars such as Ginuwine, Playa, and Tweet, lived in a single two-story house in New York and were often at work on material both for Jodeci and their own projects. While Elliott wrote and rapped on Raven-Symoné's debut 1993 single, "That's What Little Girls Are Made Of", she also contributed songwriting duties, credited and uncredited, to the final two Jodeci albums: 1993's Diary of a Mad Band and 1995's The Show, The After Party, The Hotel.

Timbaland and DeVante produced a Sista LP, 4 All the Sistas Around the World, completed in 1994. Though videos were released for the original and remix versions of the single "Brand New," the album was shelved and never released. One of the group's tracks "It's Alright" featuring Craig Mack did make the Dangerous Minds (Soundtrack) in 1995.

But by the end of 1995, Swing Mob had folded and many of its members dispersed; Elliott, Timbaland, Magoo, Ginuwine, and Playa remained together and collaborated on each others' records for the rest of the decade.