While Missy’s Under Construction came out in the fall of ’02, I’ll always think of this song as a quintessential track of the summer of ’03. Yep, that summer.
Ali tried to buy a new Stereolab album. The cover and packaging looked fine, but the record inside was actually the single for this song. That and the fact that it was blaring out of every passing car on East U. contributed to it ending up on our summer mix.
I was recently telling the story of how in that particular summer, Ali and I attempted to cover up our previous tenant’s acid trip wall scribbles with pages of vintage books we pasted up. This was a brilliant plan, until the weather got hot enough to losen the art-school glue we used to affix our homemade wallpaper. Page by page, they slid from over our heads onto our faces while we slept. Rude awakening.
Not rude awakening: this song, which spent 15 weeks at the top of the charts and served as a soundtrack to many drunken college-era evenings. Missy is the damn coolest. Besides helping to popularize the term “Badonkadonk,” (Urban Dictionary, eat your heart out) she and Timbaland have serious beat and production chops, with this track serving as a shining example. In fact, Missy and Timbaland got their start as a production/songwriting team, crafting material for groups like SWV, Destiny’s Child and Aaliyah. All that know-how shows, especially on an album like Under Construction, which relied heavily on the “old school” hiphop sound. What also shows is how each track is a “MISSSSY. ELLLLLIOOTTTT. (sometimes ONE TIME!) EXCLUSSSSIVE.”
The video for this track won plenty of awards and attention, but I’ll always still love the video for “The Rain” most, with that awesome, awesome giant garbage bag-looking getup. Dude. What was that?
Work It.mp3
Picture Lil' Kim dating a pastor.
Minute Man Big Red can outlast ya.
Who is the best? I don't have to ask ya.
When I come out, you won't even matter.
Why you act dumb like, "ughhh, duh?"
So you act dumb like, "ughhh, duh?"
And the drummer boy go pa rum pum pum pum,
Give ya some some some of this Cinnabon.
Summer Jam:In the summer of 2003, 101.3 degrees in Kent became the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK and a sweltering heat wave took all of Europe by storm, causing the heat to rise to over 112 degrees in Paris. In other news, Martha Stewart and her broker were indicted for insider trading and (somewhat ironically) SARS (totally, totally) was declared to be contained by the Worth Health Organization. Did somebody say “Swine Flu”?
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