A Song That’s Not Just a Banger - It’s a Benchmark
I’m not even a hardcore Missy Elliott fan. I respect the hell out of her, but I probably couldn’t name five of her songs off the top of my head (unless I’m already halfway through a nostalgic playlist). But “Get Your Freak On”?
That’s not just a hit. That’s an event.
From the first beat, it sounds like something beamed in from an alternate dimension where hip-hop fused with Bollywood and bass-boosted jungle drums. Missy’s flow? Effortless. Timbaland’s production? Pioneering. The whole track is chaotic brilliance that makes today’s Top 40 sound like elevator music.
It’s catchy. It’s weird. It’s a little creepy. It’s iconic.
You could play it today at a club, a wedding, a gym, a TikTok montage, or a cooking show and it would still work.
It’s timelessly now - which is the rarest thing pop music can ever be.
A Cultural Earthquake in 4 Minutes Flat
There’s something about “Get Your Freak On” that feels like it unlocked something in the cultural brain.
It dropped in 2001 - a time when mainstream hip-hop was largely dominated by the same familiar formulas: bling, bravado, and the occasional string section if you were feeling emotional.
Missy and Timbaland said:
What if we made a beat that sounds like a haunted tabla duel in a post-apocalyptic dance dojo?
What if the hook was just “Get your freak on” over and over again, except somehow it gets cooler the more it repeats?
What if we ended the song with a completely different track stitched onto the end for no reason whatsoever - and it still slapped?
And the thing is, it worked.
Not just as a song, but as a marker. It redefined what a hit could be. It gave other artists permission to be weirder, louder, and less conventional. You don’t get Doja Cat, Tyler the Creator, or half of TikTok’s trending audio landscape without Missy Elliott throwing this sonic Molotov cocktail into the room first.
24 Years Later, It Still Hits
You know how most songs fade over time? How even your favorite songs from five years ago sometimes feel like they belong in a museum?
Not this one.
Get Your Freak On still punches.
It still makes your shoulders bounce.
It still makes people yell “HOLLAAAAA!” in the car with zero shame.
As I was writing this article, with the song playing in the background, My 10 year old danced his way into my office - Even Gen Alpha can't help but shake their little butt.
And you know what? Even the music video is perfect - weird, glossy, unsettling, and stylish in the most Missy way possible.
Even that random minute-long outro still feels like a bonus track that accidentally wandered into the wrong file and decided to stay.
You Got This One Right, Rolling Stone
Sure, I might raise an eyebrow at the rest of the list. I haven’t even looked through all 250 songs, but I can guarantee there’s at least 100 “Wait… what?!” picks that make no sense. But crowning “Get Your Freak On” as the greatest hit of the 21st century (so far)?
That’s not clickbait.
That’s just correct.
So shoutout to Missy.
Shoutout to Timbaland.
Shoutout to weird beats, bold flows, and music that doesn’t care about being normal.
“HOLLAAAAA!”
