There’s one distinct advantage to making your audience wait seven years between albums: When you come back with new material, no one can deny you elderstateswoman status. So it’s good news for us that Missy Elliott, who has spent the last few years battling Graves disease, earns that designation in a pair of new songs she debuted on YouTube last night. The tracks both feature her longtime collaborator, Timbaland, and find Elliott making a strong case that her rhymes, sounds, and attitude are just as fresh as they were a decade ago.
“Guess who back, yup I’m the best / I’m that chick, ’cause I’m a triple threat / Two-fifty mil and who can top that / I slap whoever said I’m irrelevant,” Elliott tells us on “Triple Threat.” The song doubles as a celebration of the Missy/Timbaland team and a statement of purpose for an ambitious return, all over spacy beats and vocal distortions. “9th Inning” tackles similar themes — it is, of course, about coming back from behind and winning the whole thing — while managing to evoke the most intense moment in a film soundtrack over and over again. Like their previous collaborations, these are songs that sound a bit strange on first listen, but only because they’re not quite like anything else out there. Hear both tracks after the jump and let us know how thrilled you are to have Missy back in the comments.