Missy Elliott This Is Not A Test! CD

2003 album featuring the anthem 'Pass That Dutch'. Goldmind.

Personnel includes: Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z, Elephant Man, Faboluous, Nelly, R. Kelly, Monica, Beenie Man, The Clark Sisters.
Producers: Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, Timbaland.
Listeners shouldn't blame Missy Elliott for slipping into a holding pattern for her fifth album, This Is Not a Test! Early on she arrived at a distinctive sound -- the confident, clubbed-up jam with little melodic power but endless reserves of kinetic energy, courtesy of Timbaland's rubbery productions -- and she refined it well with hits like 2001's "Get Ur Freak On" and the following year's "Work It" and "Gossip Folks." Still, although she remains by far the most interesting figure in hip-hop, This Is Not a Test! has more filler than Elliott's allowed on a record since 1999's Da Real World. (Little surprise considering it appeared just over a year after 2002's Under Construction.) Granted, listeners and club fans looking for hit material will certainly find plenty on display. While the single "Pass That Dutch" is little more than a warmed-up "Work It" rewrite (albeit one studded with auditory change-ups from alarm clocks to car alarms to audience noise to the whinnying of a horse), she compensates nicely with the blazing electro shock of "I'm Really Hot" and the down-and-dirty moaning of her Nelly duet, "Pump It Up." And Timbaland's productions are still above and beyond any others on earth, with a dizzying roster of next-generation beats -- conceived in ring modulators, echo chambers, torpedo tubes, rusty pipes; anywhere except a standard drumkit -- matched to dark, technoid effects capable of raising the eyebrows of even the most experimental laptop programmers. However, most of the guest features fall flat: Fabolous wastes an excellent opportunity to match wits with Missy, giving her the shy-guy routine on "Is This Our Last Time," while Jay-Z is uninvolved on his feature, "Wake Up." Elephant Man's bounce track, "Keep It Movin," works well, but the R. Kelly duet, "Dats What I'm Talkin About," has Elliott playing -- perhaps too agreeably -- the inexperienced young girl to Kelly's mature lover. There's no need to blame Missy for not making a record that's tight all the way through, especially since few artists in the R&B world are held to such scrutiny. Still, an album like This Is Not a Test! is an effective argument for song-by-song downloads. ~ John Bush
With THIS IS NOT A TEST!, Missy Elliott, Virginia's reigning queen of hip-hop, raises the bar once again. Working with producer and partner-in-crime Timbaland, Elliott continues to develop her signature style, which pays tribute to the hip-hop pioneers of yesteryear, while flying forward into a sonic solar system of her very own. The album's tracks--and skits--effortlessly bounce between genres, styles, and tempos, ranging from dancehall ("Keep It Movin" with Elephant Man) to R&B ("I'm Not Perfect" with the Clark Sisters) to straight-up rap ("Wake Up" with Jay-Z).
However, it is on the up-tempo tracks where Elliott truly shines. On the record's first single, "Pass That Dutch," the freewheeling MC sprays lyrics like a scatterbrained genius. "Pump It Up," featuring Nelly, is a hilarious ode to oversized Southern women. And "Let Me Fix My Weave" is the Elliott/Timbaland super-tandem at its most exhilarating. THIS IS NOT A TEST! is even more proof that Missy Elliott is a pop music marvel.

Rolling Stone (12/25/03-1/8/04, p.121) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...She still sounds as hungry and driven as ever, refusing to repeat past successes, pushing on to newer and weirder realms...Why anybody would choose to spend their life without a copy of THIS IS NOT A TEST! is a mystery..."
Spin (01/04, p.95) - "...Ridiculously, abstrusely , hyper-generously funky....It's both consistently catchy and consistently weird in all the right ways..." - Grade: A-
Entertainment Weekly (11/28/03, p.124) - "...Elliott [is] full of vim and vinegar, especially when she's rapping or singing about sex....[On a couple of tracks] Elliott sets out to compete with the champagne-and-silk-underwear crowd of foxy, urban chanteuses..." - Rating: B
Q (2/04, p.100) - 4 stars out of 5 - "The sexiest, most ear-popping, jaw-dropping fusion of old-school rap tribute, sparse R&B, mutant bhangra, and beat innovation..."
Mojo (Publisher) (1/04, pp.96-7) - 3 stars out of 5 - "'Wake Up' is mesmerising....'Push It' and live hip hop deconstruction 'I'm Really Hot', both inject the set's ruthless minimalism with some fresh sonic ingredients."