Videos by According2HipHop
Nearly two decades after Missy Elliott and Christina Aguilera dropped their high-octane remake of “Car Wash” for the Shark Tale soundtrack, fans are suddenly realizing the track has basically evaporated from the internet. And Missy’s wondering why, too.
This week, the Hip-Hop icon took to X to directly press Universal Music Group and Geffen Records after being tagged repeatedly by listeners who can’t find the 2004 single on major platforms.
“The fans tagged me wanting to know why the song Car Wash on #Sharktale soundtrack [is] not on some streaming sites… Can you please help out because many of them have been asking… and miss it,” she wrote.
The absence is more confusing than ever because the song wasn’t some obscure soundtrack deep cut—it was a global charting duet, a glossy, dance-floor-ready take on Rose Royce’s 1976 disco classic. But today, the track is missing from Spotify, Apple Music, and other major services. And it’s not alone: seven out of the soundtrack’s 13 songs have quietly disappeared from Spotify, including Justin Timberlake and Timbaland’s “Good Foot” and Mary J. Blige and Will Smith’s “Got To Be Real.”
UMG and Geffen still haven’t publicly responded, leaving fans to speculate whether it’s a rights issue, a licensing lapse, or just another example of how chaotic soundtrack catalog management can be. But Missy Elliott taking the question public adds a different texture — one that cuts deeper than a missing song.
Because if there’s one recurring theme around Missy lately, it’s this: does she get the respect she deserves?
At the “Femme It Forward Give Her FlowHERS Gala,” Victoria Monét didn’t hesitate when asked which Black woman in entertainment she’d give flowers to right now. “I feel like Missy,” she answered immediately. She pointed to Elliott’s unbelievable live show, the stamina, the creativity, the fact that Missy is still performing with the same intensity she had in her 20s. “I feel like we haven’t given her her moment… the tribute show… the events like this where she can get her flowers,” Monét said, emphasizing how much of today’s music can be traced back to Missy’s blueprint.
Lizzo echoed that sentiment earlier this month during Missy’s Hollywood Walk of Fame induction, delivering a tear-filled speech about the rapper’s impact on Black girls everywhere. “You are the brightest star in the universe, Missy,” she said. “I saw a superstar in you, but I’ve also seen myself… You have no idea what you have done for so many Black girls.”
These aren’t minor co-signs — these are today’s most influential artists acknowledging that Missy Elliott is one of the most revolutionary forces to ever touch Hip-Hop, R&B, or pop. A visionary producer. A shape-shifting performer. A futurist who made the future feel fun.
So yeah, the missing “Car Wash” track is a technical issue, a licensing headache, a soundtrack cleanup job someone needs to handle. But it also serves as an uncomfortable metaphor: How does a culture so deeply shaped by Missy keep letting important pieces of her legacy fall through the cracks?
Elliott, who hasn’t released a full-length album since 2005’s The Cookbook, recently teased that she has new music on the way.
“I have something in the works,” she told Rolling Stone Music Now. “It’s just different. It’s me being experimental again… I got some stuff coming. Some fire.”
Whenever it drops, fans will be ready — streaming glitches or not.
Because if the last few weeks have proven anything, it’s that people haven’t forgotten what Missy did. They’re just waiting for the industry to catch up and act like it.
