The person I eventually find will have to like me and my style.
No, because I don't want to hear what's hot and feel I have to copy it. I'll just make up my own thing.
I talked about my father being abusive to my mother - people have never heard me talk about anything like that. That brings people a little bit more personal with Missy.
You have to be ready to sing and perform at any time.
I want kids of this generation to see that everything is cool, that there's some kind of unity in hip-hop. We all found something that's really important to us, and music is all we've really got.
You get people who rap about stuff that they don't do all day long. Half those guys, you hear them on the radio, and then you meet them, and you're like, 'Wow. They're so sweet.'
Its funny, because for females in general - not just in music, but the corporate ladder as well - anything we do has always been harder for us. When it comes to music, the industry wants you to conform, to look like this and to sound like this and do this or that. It makes it harder. It's harder for us to come out and be bosses and lead the pack.
I want to be cutting-edge.
I don't think Puffy knows what he did for hip-hop. Because he intertwined hip-hop and R&B so that people weren't intimidated.
The fun part of being an entertainer is that you call up Six Flags, and you say, 'I'm coming,' and you get to get on all the rides before everyone. I hate standing in line.
I never stopped recording, but I went through a period where... The one thing that a lot of people don't know is that for as long as I've been as artist, I've been a writer and a producer.
Music is a male-dominated field.
I don't just throw out microwave records.
I was very disturbed to find that a few people were angry at my weight loss.
My Struggles is a record close to me. It's about what I went through at home living with an abusive father.
I most definitely want kids, but I'll probably adopt kids.
People are quick to be like, 'You're irrelevant. You're a flop; you're washed up.'
If I wanted to do 'The Missing Files of Missy Elliott,' I have probably six albums just sitting there.
When I'm in the studio, I like to be in there by myself because if I'm in the mike room, and I look out and see people talking, or they're not nodding their head or rocking to the music, it makes me feel like it don't sound good, or I'll be scared to really open up vocally because I might mess up, and they might be in there laughing.
Lil' Kim is my sister, known her for years, and I'll never turn my back on her, but there is enough room for everybody. I want to see everybody get it.
I was always feisty, always that kid that would be on the porch with a hairbrush singing or rapping.
I got to feel like what I'm giving the fans is 100 percent and that it's game-changing.
Things happen in your life, and then you can write something else instead of the same three topics - like, how many times can we write about the clubs?
I'd stand on the side of the road when I was just a little girl singing on trash cans.
I remember, in school, writing Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson and asking them to come get me out of class. I would imagine them running down the hall and asking my teacher, 'Ms. Daniels, can we get Missy out of class? We're here to see Missy.'
I'll stay in my house and watch 'Lockup,' the prison show.
If you believe a black cat is bad luck, people think you're crazy, but plenty of times, if I see a black cat down my street, I turn around and go the other way. Even if I'm late. I'll be late for the airport and be in a limo, and if I see a black cat, I'll be like, 'Sir, you have to turn around and go down the next street.'
I didn't want to be a genius! That ain't cool.
All of the trials and tribulations from personal to the artist. It shows that I'm human. People see the glamorous stuff, but they don't see the background.
I think it's hard for Aaliyah to be duplicated, because she had her own lane.
I believe that tracks speak to me. Some tracks make me write certain music or make me feel sad or inspire me to write a sad love song. Each track has its feeling to me.
A lot of times, I walk down the street and listen to people argue, and then I write a song about it.
When you turn on your radio, you don't always want to hear about someone shootin' some person. Even if that's the lifestyle they live, people don't always want to hear it.
I felt like, 'How do I fit in?' But then I never fit in. The whole time, I've never fit in.
Music is a male-dominated field. Women are not always taken as seriously as we should be, so sometimes we have to put our foot down.
I have to respect her family, and until they come and say, 'We're ready to do an Aaliyah album,' then I don't really want to come and try to get into that because that's very sensitive.