Missy Elliott’s Music Reaches Venus With NASA’s Help – Essence

Singer-songwriter Missy Elliott’s iconic track “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” has taken an interplanetary journey, becoming the primary hip-hop song to be transmitted to Venus.

The journey to Venus, which takes the sunshine about 14 minutes to travel 158 million miles, symbolizes a brand new frontier in Elliot’s illustrious profession. The song was transmitted via NASA radio antennas near Barstow, California, facilities normally reserved for tracking spacecraft and communicating with distant missions.

Ever the visionary, Elliott expressed her excitement on X (formerly generally known as Twitter), writing, “My song ‘The Rain’ has officially been sent all the way to Venus, a planet that symbolizes strength, beauty, and power. The sky’s the limit, this is just the beginning.”

NASA’s decision to beam Elliot’s song to Venus is simply the second time NASA has sent a song into space, the primary being the Beatles’ “Across the Universe” to Polaris in 2008.

Brittany Brown, NASA’s director of communications, highlighted Elliott’s love of space-themed visuals and storytelling in her music. “Missy has a history of bringing space stories and futuristic visuals into her music videos, so the opportunity to collaborate on something out of this world was a really good fit,” Brown said.

Elliott’s work often features space themes, from the futuristic aesthetic of her “Sock It 2 ​​​​Me” music video to 2024 tour announced On the tour, her first as a headliner, Elliott wore chrome and studded costumes inspired by Eighties space movies, underscoring her long-standing affinity with space themes.

The interstellar accolade joins Elliott’s growing list of accolades. In 2019, she became the primary female hip-hop artist inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 2023, she was the primary female rapper inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her hometown of Portsmouth, Virginia, even named a street after her, solidifying her legacy each locally and globally.

Rare NASA Music Broadcasts began with the Voyager 1 and a pair of missions in 1977, which consisted of a gilded copper gramophone record containing “sounds and images selected to represent the diversity of life and culture on Earth.” Elliot’s song now joins that tradition, expanding humanity’s cultural footprint within the universe.

Whether she’s donning futuristic gear in her music videos or pushing the boundaries of hip-hop, Elliott continues to interrupt barriers and set recent standards. NASA’s decision to send her song to Venus epitomizes her as an innovator and visionary, combining science and art in a way that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible. As Elliott herself so aptly puts it, “The sky’s the limit, it’s just the beginning.”