Missy Elliott has stunned a few of her younger fans by dropping an easter egg about her 2002 hit “Work It.”
Missy took to Twitter on Sunday (May 14) to reveal that the track’s signature gibberish bars actually weren’t gibberish at all, but were simply the song’s hook reversed.
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“!it esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup I,” Missy wrote alongside a carousel of photos. Fans quickly realized that the caption read: “I put my thang down, flip it and reverse it!” backwards.
While this information isn’t news to veteran Hip Hop heads, it was clear dozens of fans weren’t aware of this fun fact about “Work It.”
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“I was today years old when I found out that part of this song is just the prior bar literally in reverse lol I feel shame,” wrote one fan. “Shit went over my head for 20 years and I consider myself a hip-hop/r&b connoisseur.”
Another added: “Everything makes sense now,” while another wrote: “Read it reverse this tweet was so fun to read…the little things on Twitter.”
Check out the reactions below.
“Work It” appeared on Missy Elliott’s 2002 album Under Construction, which was a critical and commercial juggernaut, debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with over 350,000 copies sold in its first week. The project was nominated for two Grammys, including Album of the Year, while being certified double platinum by the RIAA.
While reflecting on her trailblazing catalog on social media last year, During a reflective moment on Twitter, Missy admitted Under Construction initially was a challenge to create because she and Timbaland didn’t know sonically which way to take the album.
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“This album was challenging because every1 of my albums was so different in sound & cadence Tim and I was scratching our heads on which direction to go next,” she wrote on Twitter. “so we took our love for old school Hip Hop & breaks beats & Blended with our FUTURE sound & this what came of it.”
In other Missy Elliott news, Timbo recently confirmed that she is hard at work on her follow-up to 2005’s The Cookbook, and apparently, a few songs have a “latin feel” to them.
“We’ve got a lot of songs we’re gonna start recording soon, and my dream is to have it out around her birthday in July,” the super producer told Variety. “I want it to sound how she looks — she looks incredible right now. We both look like we 19 again. I know how Missy works: It’s got to be new and fun — or maybe not so much new as kind of underground, and everything is upbeat.”
He continued: “Some of it has a kind of Latin feel to it, almost a Bad Bunny effect, some of it’s kinda like underground Brazilian funk. People gonna eat it up — and it might reach just a different demographic of people. It’s like it’s her doing… not reggaeton but Missy-ton.”
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Revisit “Work It” below and check out more Missy Elliott on The Past, Present, Future is Female playlist HERE.
