Missy elliott returns with yet another album, The Cookbook. The Cookbook displays many different flavours of hip-hop, and just as many featured guests. Throughout the entirety of this album, only one thing stays consistent; Missy's constantly hot verses. As usual, she shows many sides of herself, through songs of pride in women being themselves, to songs of repentance, and of course, the club beats that any commercial album must have to sell.

That being said, even on these party beats, with commercial hooks, Missy can always be found bringing up the track with her clever and witty wordplay. If that is not enough, she combines her street flow with her rough past to come up with hot tracks, even for the underground, such as My Struggles, and Meltdown

The cookbook certainly samples everything from all corners of the industry, with guest appearances from : Mike Jones, Slick Rick, Ciara, Fat Man Scoop, Mary J. Blige, Grand Pupa, Fantasia, Vybez Cartel & Mia. Even with this many guests, Missy finds a way to incorporate them all differently, some providing hooks, some putting down 16, and even Mary J. spitting about her life problems. On top of this, each guest provides a different style to go along with the differently styled beats. The varied production on this album proves Missy to be the most versatile female artist, as she goes from mainstream production from her long time partner Timbaland (Partytime), to lyrical beats Scott Storch (Meltdown), and everything in-between. Even more surprising is elliott doing hot production herself, on the single Lose Control, and the slow lyrical Remember When.

The Cookbook is definitely another notch on Missy's belt, and it provides a handful of different views on hip-hop, furthering her domination as the queen of the rap game. A surprisingly good album.

Overall Rating: 4/5
Written By: m.jizzLe