June is Black Music Month, Countdown of Shamontiel's Top 30 African-American Artists

President George W. Bush had a lot of screw-ups during his eight-year term, but he did do a couple things right. One of them was proclaiming June as Black Music Month on May 31, 2002. Memorial Day is here and June is around the corner. To celebrate Black Music Month, I'll be featuring one of my favorite artists each day, sharing my first or most personal memory of them, explain what their accomplishments are and why I felt they should make the Black Music Month Top 30 list. There will be some oldies, some newbies and some artists who are in between stages.

Women get a lot of flack for not being able to hold their own or get the same respect as male rappers. Although I was a huge fan of Salt n' Pepa, MC Lyte and Queen Latifah, it'd been a long time since I liked a female emcee. New female emcees were coming off like men with vaginas talking about busting shots and calling themselves "bitches" nonstop, looking like they stepped out of a Mattel® factory gone awry or like they should've been the hood version of Victoria's Secret with nothing to talk about outside of wanting diamonds. I wasn't feeling it. It's difficult for me to respect an artist who doesn't seem to respect herself. But there were a few female rappers who fought against the odds and came out swinging talent.

My June 12 selection is Missy Elliott.

Black Music Month Heat Factor "Why's this artist hot?": Missy came out looking like somebody's science project in the "Sock It to Me" video. She had her back-up dancers doing the robot in "Beep Me (911)" and wearing these strange, old-school dresses. Then she switched into some weird girl version of a firefighter style outfit while producer Timbaland and Magoo wore the most wretched wigs ever. Now we thought that was odd, but when she came out wearing a puffy garbage bag in "Supa Dupa Fly," we knew she was officially unique. We heard her singing "vroooom" and random noises like "yee yee yee yee yow" on her songs and thought, "What the hell is she talking about?" The average woman couldn't pull this off, and hip-hop heads would've considered her a gimmick, but what worked for Missy was she could dance her butt off, rhyme on point, sing well and effectively compliment each of Timbaland's beats. Sometimes an artist can get lost in the instrumental, but that never happened with Missy who said, "we so tight that you get our styles tangled."

Female rappers were trying to be as prissy and look like a man's wet dream, but Missy knew she didn't have traditional model looks. That worked to her advantage, plus her hair was always whipped to perfection. Droves of girls clipped their weaves to get stacked and feathered haircuts. Beauticians got photos of Missy with customers saying, "I want to look like her." And while she came to be known for tight lyrics, juking on the dance floor (remember when she learned Chicago footwork in "Lose Control"?), her fans looked forward to whatever her next wacky video was. But we stared in open-mouthed shock before immediately clamping our mouths closed when a guy swallowed Missy's spit in "Get Ur Freak On." That's when we knew Missy and her stretched-out neck had no intention of being like any other female (or male) artist we'd ever encountered.

First Memory, Most Personal Memory of the Artist: I was 16 and taking a creative writing class at Morgan Park. The assignment was to take a fairy tale and change it into a new school song. I chose "Sock It To Me" and sang, "It was just around midnight, and I decided to go, Hang out with a prince y'all, My stepsisters were out of control...I'm going crazy, I talk to mice, you see." I can't remember the rest, but I remember getting a loud round of applause when I was done singing about "Cinderella." I got an "A" on that assignment and from then on, I've been a loyal fan of Missy's music and bought all of her albums.

Accomplishments from the Artist: Missy started off writing hit music for artists like the late Aaliyah and working with Timbaland after leaving girl group Sista. When she went solo, the public embraced her, her award-winning songs and award-winning music videos. She won multiple times with a Soul Train Lady of Soul Award, Soul Train Music Award, MTV Video Award, BET Award, American Music Award and Grammy Awards, along with a Vibe Award. She might as well have owned the Billboard charts with hit singles like "One Minute Man" (42 weeks), "Lose Control" (27 weeks), "Get Ur Freak On" (25 weeks), "Work It" (25 weeks), "Take Away" (20 weeks), "Sock It to Me" (20 weeks), "Gossip Folks" (20 weeks), "Pass That Dutch" (15 weeks), "I'm Really Hot" (10 weeks), "Ching a Ling" (9 weeks), "She's a Bitch" (6 weeks), "We Run This" (5 weeks) and "Pussycat" (5 weeks). Other hot artists who've been able to work with her include the late Aaliyah, Ciara, Fantasia, Ginuwine, Left Eye of TLC, Jay-Z, MC Lyte, Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige and Slick Rick. With six studio albums-another example of a female hip-hop artist who has over five studio albums before Trina, who said she was the first to do so on "The Mo'Nique Show"-Missy's body of work is highly respected and has depth to it.

And she's probably the only female rapper out now who can dance as good as Aaliyah and Ciara.

Other Black Music Month Selections:

June 1 Trey Songz

June 2 Marvin Gaye

June 3 Rakim Allah

June 4 Brandy Norwood

June 5 Tina Turner

June 6 MC Lyte

June 7 Lyfe Jennings

June 8 Bill Withers

June 9 Wyclef Jean

June 10 Erykah Badu

June 11 Chaka Khan