Nasa beams Missy Elliott’s debut solo single into space

Missy Elliott’s debut solo single The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) has been set into outer space.

Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California used their Deep Space Network to transmit the song 158 million miles from Earth to Venus at the speed of light, taking just 14 minutes to reach.

The rapper posted to X: “Yo this is crazy! We just went #outofthisworld with Nasa and sent the first hip hop song into space through the Deep Space Network.

“My song The Rain has officially been transmitted all the way to Venus, the planet that symbolises strength, beauty, and empowerment. The sky is not the limit, it’s just the beginning.”

Brittany Brown, Digital and Technology Division Director at Nasa’s Office of Communications, told Pitchfork: “Both space exploration and Missy Elliott’s art have been about pushing boundaries.

“Missy has a track record of infusing space-centric storytelling and futuristic visuals in her music videos, so the opportunity to collaborate on something out of this world is truly fitting.”

It’s been a period of firsts for the hip-hop legend as, before having a song transmitted into space, Missy became the first female rapper inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, something she always felt “seemed so far out of reach.”

Appearing on Good Morning America ahead of the ceremony last year, she said: “Words cannot describe.

“It just hasn’t clicked.”

The 53-year-old superstar admitted she owes everything to the women who came before her, including Queen Latifah, 54.

She said of her fellow rapper: “She’s somebody that, like I said, ‘Came before me, opened that door, left it open.’

“And I owe so many flowers, bouquets. It’s not enough bouquets for those women that came before me. And she’s one of those women.”

The rapper said rock n’ roll is like hip-hop, in that it incorporates many other genres.

She explained: “Rock n’ roll to me is a gumbo of different styles of music.

“I think we get this thing where, rock n’ roll, you gotta have a guitar. It’s like saying hip-hop is just rap when we have incorporated jazz, we have incorporated blues.”

Other inductees included Rage Against The Machine, Kate Bush, The Spinners, the late George Michael, and Bernie Taupin.