In 2003, the only thing more shocking than Madonna kissing Britney Spears (before also kissing Christina Aguilera, whose smooch didn’t get half as much play) was the sudden appearance of Missy Elliott onstage immediately afterward. Responding to Madonna screaming, “Yo yo yo, who dat be?” Missy showed up with the declaration, “Missy on the M-I-C!” However, for the devoted Madonna fans (because even then, one still had to be more diehard than the average to know what was going on), it was no surprise considering the two were already reported to have filmed a Gap commercial together at the time–in one of M’s burst of endorsement deals that came in the 00s, including for H&M, Motorola and, more roundaboutly, Estee Lauder. The remix of “Hollywood” from her then latest record, American Life, (the title track for which Missy would also create a remix for) incorporated verses and sonic aspects of her 1985 hit, “Into the Groove.” Thus, “A New Groove, A New Jean” was the according slogan for the jeans being peddled and the remix that went along with that shilling in the one minute, fourteen second ad.
Wanting to subconsciously remind the MTV crowd of her new song and (denim) dance, bringing Missy onstage was more retail-savvy than random–for M was calculated long before that adjective became almost exclusively associated with Taylor Swift. What’s more, it meant an assured recorded collaboration of their sonic harmony together on “Into the Hollywood Groove” (featured on the EP, Remixed and Revisited and also used with Missy as a video backdrop for a performance of “Into the Groove” during 2004’s Reinvention Tour), spurred by the work they had already done together on the “American Life” remixes–with additional vocals from Elliott’s favorite of that moment, Tweet–that came out earlier in the year.
When taking into account that it was only two years later that Missy would go on an unspoken hiatus after releasing The Cookbook (still her last full-length album despite at least releasing 2019’s EP, Iconology), it was blessed indeed that Madonna would catch her before Graves’ disease took complete hold and she went on a too long but much needed break (though M did manage to link up with Missy again by way of a cameo on an episode of her reality show, The Road to Stardom, that aired in ’05). To that point, we come to The Blessed Madonna’s (recently changed from The Black Madonna to accommodate the sudden barrage of white people’s “sensitivity” to their inherent racism) remix of Dua Lipa’s “Levitating.”
Released on Future Nostalgia back in spring (which feels about, oh, five years ago now), it was not among one of the singles to accompany the likes of “Don’t Start Now,” “Physical,” “Break My Heart” and “Hallucinate,” yet possessed the same obvious cachet for being Top 40 material. As part of the remixing of every song from the record to be repurposed as Club Future Nostalgia: The Remix Album, “Levitating” finally does get to be the lead single thanks to the clout of its star power. With The Blessed Madonna infusing the beat with a more 90s-era house flavor and beefing up the bassline to make it befitting of the pop star who brought us “Into the Groove” (sporting arguably one of the best basslines of the twentieth century), the result is something that truly does make one get slapped with Past Nostalgia for a time when dance floors didn’t need to be “pandemic proofed,” defeating the entire purpose of what the environment is supposed to represent.
The connection Lipa had to honoring that environment per her own homage to Madonna’s work (Confessions on a Dance Floor in particular, even collaborating with that album’s producer, Stuart Price, who also shows up on the remix) is something she seems to want to reiterate with an even more dance-ified version of Future Nostalgia, perhaps hoping people will settle for their living rooms as “the club” while TikTok is still in existence.
To choose a song that features the lyrics, “I got you, moonlight, you’re my starlight” seems appropriate for Madonna, whose own lyrics for 1983’s “Lucky Star” consisted of, “Starlight, star bright/First star I see tonight/Starlight, star bright/Make everything all right–yeah!” She was the original dance pop diva of the galaxy, after all. And yet, she seems content to let Lipa keep the spotlight on this reworking, blending her own vocals in less noticeably than on another track she was recently featured on, Quavo’s “Champagne Rosé.” It is, in fact, Missy who does all the standout lyrical additions with such assertions as, “I’m a freak, I like to play shy/But I will get it poppin’, anything, I’ll try it” and “Don’t speak, open up your eyelids/I can be your girl if you keep it private.” The “don’t speak” part could easily be a reference to another collaborator on the album, Gwen Stefani (with Mark Ronson for “Physical”). For there’s no denying that everything on this record is intertwined within the constellation of stars featuring Madonna as its auditorily influential anchor.
Apart from the sound and the album cover (compared to a similar car-driving look and position Madonna adopted for a 1995 Versace campaign) being M-centric, Lipa confirmed once again in an interview with Zane Lowe, “Madonna has been an artist that I’ve listened to my whole life. Her career trajectory as well has been something so inspirational and the momentum that she’s kept and the way that she’s grown with her music.” So yes, it’s difficult to deny that the forever lingering nebula of Madonna’s pastiche continues to affect everything in modern pop culture (whether she’s officially a part of the project or not)–regardless of Gen Z haters being aware of it. And with “Levitating” reuniting the iconic forces of Missy and Madonna, we can all vaguely pretend it’s still 2003 instead of whatever “this” is supposed to be.
