Hiiiiiii Missy?
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[4.89]
Mark Sinker: run come save us missy
[8]
David Sheffieck: As the first Missy we’re getting after another year’s absence, as a demonstration of her versatility, as a reminder that she’s able to adapt to any sound and any flow? It works. The only problem is, she can definitely do better: she excels at setting trends, not following them.
[6]
Ryo Miyauchi: Missy rewrites the old school like no other, but her attempts to join the hot present in “I’m Better” doesn’t produce the same magic. The single’s references — Lamb’s “Started from the Bottom” bit, the 808 Mafia/Kill Bill siren noise, a Scandal nod — fits too squarely with the now, it’s almost faceless without knowing it’s a Missy Elliott production. A suggestion would be to add an ad lib or two to make the percussive flow pop, but that’s pretty standard business too.
[5]
Micha Cavaseno: When Missy Elliott is on fire as a rapper, she’s incredibly gifted, at ease in the weirdest of situations. The problem is, few people admit she’s capable of making missteps with the best of them. Here, we’ve got a lame redeux of Nicki Minaj’s “Only” with a swaggerless hook-guy and Missy doing some bad attempt at the Migos triplet flow with some of her most boring punchlines yet. Not for nothing, I get that everyone expects another “Supa Dupa Fly” out of her as proven by the number of abandoned singles leading up to this supposed phantom album but I’d rather hear a “Hot Boyz” or a “Beep Me (911).” Frankly, Missy was never the show-stopping rapper as much as she was a multi-talented artist. To think she’d settle with the most basic interpretations of herself?
[2]
Jonathan Bradley: She’s back, but was anyone asking for Minimalist Elliott? Missy is at her best when she’s at her biggest: we love her for her personality, her brazenness, her elephant noises. It’s not as if she left all that behind — peep her pronunciation of “ve-hicle” — but “I’m Better” is given over too much to 2017 sounds and someone called Lamb (so much Lamb), who elongates his syllables like Drake and encourages Missy to do the same. Neither succeeds in the attempt.
[4]
Katie Gill: A lethargic chorus by Lamb thankfully doesn’t squash Elliott’s rhymes. The minimalist production highlights her effortlessly flow and sheer ability to sell a track just on presence alone. Needless to say, between the trifecta of good songs that are this, “WTF (Where They From)” and “Pep Rally,” Elliott’s firmly established herself back as a talented player in modern hip-hop.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Her pinched, needling timbre intact but her choice in collaborators as shot as Robbie Robertson’s voice, Missy stretches syllables like chewing gum, stares at nice shoes, pretends to get hot over papi chechos — anything to ignore the clod in an ill-fitting shirt pretending he deserves to stand beside her.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: A creeping, sinister production pretty much wasted here — there’s too much of Lamb repeating the same tired hook with the grating “frieeeeeeeeends” that has me reaching for the volume knob. Missy sounds playful in snatches but mostly sounds bored, like she knows she’s funny and brilliant but can’t really be bothered right now. I’d be happy to wait yet another year for a Missy album if this isn’t representative of what’s to be on it.
[4]
Anjy Ou: Missy is a great rapper but spends too much time here subsuming her lyricism under the flow of her juniors just to prove a point. She breaks free of that about two-and-a-half minutes in and the song picks up, but every time Lamb comes in it’s like he’s throwing cold water on Missy’s fuego (that rhymes with “vehicle”). Someone should have buried his invite to this party in the backyard and claimed they lost it. So — not that much better. Sorry.
[5]