Entertainment

Lizzo & Missy Elliott's "Tempo" Video Will Make You Want To Party In A Parking Lot

Lizzo via YouTube

The debate over the song of the summer might still be raging on, but when it comes to the ultimate summer music video, it seems as if Lizzo may have just come to take the crown. Lizzo and Missy Elliott's music video for "Tempo" — which dropped on Friday, July 26 — is basically everyone's ideal summer party, complete with lowriders, champion-level twerking, and trippy acrobatics.

The clip centers around an old-fashioned diner, appropriately called Lizzo's Breakfast and Burgers, where a group of dancers are partying in the parking lot. The singer and rapper herself appears shortly after, rocking a blue and silver sequined bikini, a blue faux fur cape and a red cowboy hat, twerking and mugging at the camera while her backup dancers treat the bouncing lowriders as trampolines and do flips in mid-air. The slow-motion floating seems to be an homage to Missy Elliott who makes a grand entrance halfway through the video by leaping out of the hood of a car, rocking one of her signature sweatsuits.

On July 25, Lizzo teased the "Tempo" video by sharing a video of herself on Twitter gushing about Elliott in various interviews over the course of her career. "Missy Elliott is one of the greatest artists of all time," the rapper said in one clip, describing the "Supa Dupa Fly" rapper as an "inspiration" and her "idol." (The feeling is clearly mutual, as Elliott wrote in response, "I love you lizzo with all my heart sis!!!)

Lizzo has been a fan of Elliott and her music since she was a teenager, writing in a series of tweets back in January that she "would not be me" without the legendary rapper paving the way. In celebration of Elliott becoming the first female rapper inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, Lizzo wrote a touching tribute to her idol, describing Elliott as her "fearless leader."

"You cut through the thickets of the musical landscape and brought us to the futuristic, smooth, syncopated land of Missy. We love you, we cherish you and we need you," she wrote on Twitter. "Thank you for your dedication to craft and your 360 visionary prowess. You deliver every time! You gave us Bops, Looks, Choreo, Bars, Melodies, & ‘Break-the-Internet’ moments before there was an internet even break!"

In fact, Lizzo is so knowledgable about Elliott's sound and vibe that while working on "Tempo," she knew it was the perfect song to collaborate with Elliott on, and reached out to the rapper quickly. "I heard it, and I was like, this is so obviously Missy, and I was like, I hope she blesses me with a verse," Lizzo told Beats 1 DJ Travis Mills in February. "She sent me a memoji of herself singing her verse, that’s how I got the verse … I got a memoji of Missy like, smiling and then she just started rapping, and I was like, 'Oh my god, what the hell.'"

If the "Tempo" music video is any indication, Lizzo and Elliott are a match made in musical heaven — and they also clearly know how to throw a rocking party, even if it's just in a parking lot. It's basically summer goals, in a fun, danceable package.