"The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" is based on the 1974 Ann Peebles song "
I Can't Stand The Rain," which is sampled for the chorus.
This was Missy Elliott's first single, and it also spawned her first music video. Timbaland produced and co-wrote the song and appeared in the video (the beginning of Elliott's longtime collaboration with director Hype Williams until he was replaced by Dave Meyers). Elliott played up her size in the video by wearing an enormous inflated trash bag - a "screw you" to all the execs who told her she was too fat to make it in the music business.
Elliott faced a hiccup when the blow-up suit inflated beyond its intended proportions. She tweeted about the experience, saying:
"Fun fact I had to go to a gas station in Brooklyn, New York,to get air in this blow up suit And the suit blew up so big I couldn't fit in the car so I had to walk back to set down the street in this outfit in BROOKLYN."
She added: "Dem ppl was riding pass like she must be high."
There are some marijuana references in this song: "Indo" and "Hydro" are both forms of the drug. Elliott later told Newsweek she quit smoking pot as a "spiritual decision" and that the news would probably shock her mother: "She's going to say, 'I didn't even know you were smoking."
Elliott included a dedication to her mother in the sleeve notes of Supa Dupa Fly: "To my mom Patricia Elliott, I would not trade you in for six Mercedes Benz, and you know how much I love cars."
By 2004, Elliott's love of cars was a full-on obsession and her mom was trying to get her to kick her expensive habit. "I am nuts for cars. My mother was just getting on me 'cause I bought three new cars in one year…I bought a scooter, hooked it up with rims, got it painted - and I don't even know how to ride. I spent like $5,600, tried riding it in a parking lot, crashed and never picked it up again," she was quoted on Autoblog.
Elliott and her mother fled from her abusive father when the singer was 14.
When Elliott declares that she's "Supa Dupa Fly," she's saying that she's even more fly than "
Superfly," which was popularized by Curtis Mayfield. As "Superfly" is superior to the standard "Fly," Missy has reached a new level of flyness.
The line, "You don't wanna play with my Yo-Yo" is a reference to the 1991 song "You Can't Play With My Yo-Yo" by Yolanda Whitaker, who recorded as Yo-Yo. She was Ice Cube's protégé, and he rapped on the song.
The video features cameos from some of Missy Elliott's friends and collaborators, including Timbaland, Sean Combs, Lil Kim, Tamara Johnson-George of SWV, Yo-Yo, Total, 702, Da Brat, and Lil' Cease.
Rolling Stone placed the music video at #1 on their 2023 list of 150 Best Rap Music Videos of All Time.
NASA's Deep Space Network beamed "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" a whopping 158 million miles to Venus, marking the first-ever hip-hop transmission into space. The California-based Jet Propulsion Lab rocketed the signal at the speed of light on July 12, 2024, reaching Venus 14 minutes later.
"I still can't believe I'm going out of this world with NASA through the Deep Space Network," said Elliott. "I chose Venus because it symbolizes strength, beauty, and empowerment and I am so humbled to have the opportunity to share my art and my message with the universe!"
