R&B legends unite for Missy Elliott’s first headline tour

Hip-hop pioneer Missy Elliott will hit the road this summer on her first headline tour, joined by Ciara, Busta Rhymes, and special guest Timbaland.

The Live Nation-promoted, 24-city run OUT OF THIS WORLD — The Missy Elliott Experience tour will bring the R&B superstar to arenas across North America, kicking off at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena (19,700-cap) on 4 July.

“This is an incredible time in my life as I am experiencing so many milestone ‘firsts.’ Being the first female hip-hop artist to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and now going out on my first headline tour,” Elliott says.

The arena tour will make stops at Los Angeles’s Crypto.com Arena (20,000), Atlanta’s State Farm Arena (16,888), New York’s UBS Arena (19,000) and Barclays Center (19,000), before wrapping up at Allstate Arena (18,500) in Rosemont, Illinois on 22 August.

“Fans have been asking me to tour forever but I wanted to wait until I felt the time was right because I knew if I was ever going to do it, I had to do it big, and I had to do it with family!” Elliott says. “We can’t wait to share this experience with the fans!”

A lineup of legendary R&B stars will join the four-time Grammy-award-winner on the road. Multi-platinum singer Ciara, hip-hop star Busta Rhymes, and hit-making producer Timbaland fill out the bill, all of whom Elliott has regularly collaborated with during her 30-year career.

“Elliott is a true path breaker in a male-dominated genre”

The multi-artist tour is co-produced by Elliott’s manager Mona Scott-Young, CEO of Monami Entertainment, who says the squad will “deliver a start-to-finish, nonstop, high-octane, OUT OF THIS WORLD concert experience”.

“Missy has always been an iconic groundbreaker and continuously pushes herself to be bolder and go where she has never been before – and surprisingly, one of those places is headlining her own tour!” Scott-Young says.

The 52-year-old star made history last year as the first female hip-hop artist to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which declared her “a true pathbreaker in a male-dominated genre.” In 2019, she became the first female hip-hop artist and third-ever rapper to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Her most recent EP, 2019’s ICONOLOGY, was met with critical acclaim, peaking at 24 on the Billboard 200. The debut EP broke the hitmaker’s 14-year hiatus, becoming her first new release since 2006’s greatest hits compilation Respect M.E.

Presales will run from today ahead of the general sale this Friday, 12 April, at 10:00 local time. VIP packages are also available, boasting premium tickets, an onstage group photo, exclusive lounge access, and more.

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