If rap icon Missy Elliott wasn’t clear enough when she said “copywritten, so don’t copy me” on “Get Ur Freak On,” she made herself even clearer on Thursday night. After successfully getting the majority of royalties for Bad Bunny’s hit song “Safarea,” which features elements of Missy’s 2001 banger, she took to Twitter to respond to one part of the Jowell and Randy reggaeton duo who threw some online heat.
“Fuck that!” Jowell wrote on Twitter in response to an Ariana Grande fan page accusing Jowell’s interview of inciting people to send hate to Missy Elliott. “Let them enjoy their money. Its [sic] not you and me enjoying it right? Let them be happy and talk about something else. Missy dont even care. Why would you?”
Last week, Jowell said in an interview that his royalties for Bad Buny’s “Safaera,” which he featured on, dropped from between 15 and 30 percent to just 1 percent. The interview led some fans to take sides online, claiming “Safaera” is an original Bad Bunny song and that Missy Elliott does not deserve the agreed-upon royalties.
Missy Elliott, the active Twitter user she is, clapped back to Jowell’s tweet a few hours later.
Jowell ate his words, writing that what he had said had gotten “lost in translation,” and that he was “cool” with his 1 percent.
But it didn’t end there. Missy then said she was glad he was clarifying that there were many writers and samples involved in the song, and deserve their due credit as well.
Unlike her haters, Missy Elliott fans encouraged people to listen to “Safaera” so the rap queen “gets her coin.”
The Twitter saga ended with Jowell praising Missy and her work and saying he wanted to work with her on a project “from scratch.”
Given how much “Safaera” resonated with people across cultures and languages, an actual collaboration would be fire. But is it too late for this given what went down, or is a joint project the perfect opportunity to conclude a bitter misunderstanding? Only time will tell.