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By Verónica Bayetti Flores • @veroconplatanos • 8 years ago

Feministing Jamz video of the week: Missy Elliott – WTF (Where They From)

The queen is back: Missy Elliott told us she had a new song coming out today, but she also gave us a video!

The song and video are classic Missy at her Afro-futuristic best, and therefore obviously excellent. The lyrics seem to call out the shit that Miley’s pulled:

The dance you doing is dumb*
How they do where you from
Stickin’ out your tongue girl
But you know you’re too young
A bunch of girls do it and the shit looks fun
That’s how they do it where we from

Like: this is what we do girl. What do your people do? But Missy’s chill about it though. Her shit’s so futuristic that she’s really not that pressed. She’s busy talking about how gorgeous she is in her big lips and big hips, feeling and looking gorgeous in her skin and knowing that everyone — from nail salon workers to girls on the street to dudes stuck in traffic — is enjoying her comeback.

It was hard to pick, with the last week blessing us with an excellent new album by the always outspokenly feminist Grimes, and a fire new song by Erykah Badu. But god damn, my body was ready for some new Missy! Here’s to her comeback!

*I want to be conscious that this is an ableist term– please avoid it!

New York, NY

Verónica Bayetti Flores has spent the last years of her life living and breathing reproductive justice. She has led national policy and movement building work on the intersections of immigrants' rights, health care access, young parenthood, and LGBTQ liberation, and has worked to increase access to contraception and abortion, fought for paid sick leave, and demanded access to safe public space for queer youth of color. In 2008 Verónica obtained her Master’s degree in the Sexuality and Health program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She loves cooking, making art, listening to music, and thinking about the ways art forms traditionally seen as feminine are valued and devalued. In addition to writing for Feministing, she is currently spending most of her time doing policy work to reduce the harms of LGBTQ youth of color's interactions with the police and making sure abortion care is accessible to all regardless of their income.

Verónica is a queer immigrant writer, activist, and rabble-rouser.

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