“The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” by Missy Elliott

"The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" was Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott's first single under her own name, the opening shot from her 1997 debut album Supa Dupa Fly, and it sounded like it had drifted in from another planet. Timbaland produced it around a sample of Ann Peebles' 1973 single "I Can't Stand the Rain", whose words become the hook, and he leaves the rest wide open, so Elliott can drawl, coo and swagger across the gaps in the beat.

Elliott and Timbaland wrote it with Don Bryant and Bernard Miller; Jimmy Douglass engineered and co-mixed with Timbaland, and Hype Williams directed the video. It climbed to number six on Billboard's R&B airplay chart and reached the top 20 in the UK and New Zealand, and Method Man & Redman later lifted its moans for a track of their own.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.