Work It

"Work It"
Single by Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott
from the album Under Construction
Released	September 2, 2002 (2002-09-02)
Format	Digital download CD single 12" single
Recorded	2002
Genre	Hip hop
Length	4:58
Label	Goldmind/Elektra
Writer(s)	Missy Elliott Tim Mosley
Producer	Timbaland and Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott (co-producer)
Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott singles chronology
"The Knoc" (2002) "Work It" (2002) "Gossip Folks" (2003)

"Work It" is a hip hop song written by American rapper/singer Missy Elliott and her producer Tim "Timbaland" Mosley for Elliott's critically acclaimed fourth studio album Under Construction (2002). The song's musical style, and production by Timbaland, were heavily inspired by Old school hip hop from the 1980s, and includes a portion which samples Run-D.M.C.'s "Peter Piper". The beginning of the song samples Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three's "Request Line". Released as the album's first single in the fall of 2002, the track reached the number two position on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, becoming Missy Elliott's most successful single to date.

The single spent ten consecutive weeks at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States behind Eminem's huge hit "Lose Yourself" (about this Elliott confessed: "I just wanted to die those ten weeks, I mean, it wasn't cool"), and reached number one for five weeks on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The song is tied with Foreigner's 1981 hit "Waiting for a Girl Like You" as the longest-running U.S. number-two single that did not reach number one; both spent 10 weeks at #2. "Work It"'s music video was directed by Dave Meyers. A remix of this song features 50 Cent. The end of the song samples "Peter Piper" by Run-DMC, and the synth pattern in the rhythm track samples the intro to "Heart of Glass" by Blondie.

Lyrics

• A portion of the song's lyrics helped popularize the slang term "badonkadonk" with mainstream audiences:

"...love the way my ass go 'bum-bump-bum-bump-bump'

keep your eyes on my 'bum-bump-bum-bump-bump'

and think you can handle this 'badonk-a-donk-donk'"

• During the chorus, the line "I put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it" is simply played backwards, a part many mistakenly assumed to be gibberish. In the middle of the song, after the line "Listen up close while I take you backwards", the line "Watch the way Missy like to take it backwards" is also played in reverse. This vocal reversing trend made it to several of her productions during the following years.

The song and video are highly suggestive, a fact instanced during the chorus, in which an elephant's trumpet is repeatedly sounded to mask a sexual reference. At one point during the video, Elliott is shown on a date, promising the man that he "won't find a chick that's even better" and that she can "make [him as] hot as Las Vegas weather", after which he falls to the floor, apparently in a drunken stupor. She seems unaffected.

Music video

• Aaliyah and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes (who at the time had both recently died) are commemorated in the music video with their images airbrushed on a car's hood.
• Actress and dancer Alyson Stoner appears as a background dancer in the video.
• Timbaland, Eve and Tweet make cameos.
• Won MTV Best Video of the Year, 2003

Charts