Missy Elliott has "never felt like [she's] fit in".
Missy Elliott
The 50-year-old rap star is widely seen as a pioneer within the music industry, but Missy has admitted to feeling like something of an outsider in the business.
Missy - who first appeared on the music scene as part of the R&B group Sista - shared: "Sometimes you gotta take a chance. I never felt like I fit in, period.
"I don’t think there was a lane for the music that we did. The only reason they found a lane is because I was rapping over the tracks. But at first, I don’t think people understood the music."
Despite this, Missy concedes that new artists now experience more pressures than she did at the start of her career.
The chart-topping star acknowledged that young artists are facing more scrutiny than ever.
She told Interview magazine: "People don’t realise that artists are sensitive or that they have feelings.
"When I was coming up we didn’t have social media, so we could turn off the artistry when we finished our interviews and went home. Now you have to be in artist mode at all times, because you gotta watch what you post. If somebody seems crazy to you, you can’t lash out at them.
"The bigger you get, the more you have to be aware."
Missy also revealed that, contrary to popular perception, she's actually an "introvert".
She explained: "I’m such an introvert.
"My friends were making a joke the other day. They were like, 'Missy will play the Super Bowl, and then she’ll come back home and we want to have a party for her, and she’s like, ‘I’m mopping my floors. I gotta take my dogs out.' And it’s like, 'You just did the Super Bowl!' I just love being inside."
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