A Missy Elliott monument to the "Get Ur Freak On" rapper could soon stand in place of a Confederate statue in her hometown of Portsmouth, Virginia.
Nathan Coflin, a Portsmouth native, filed a petition last week to have a rebel statue replaced by Elliott who he called a "true Portsmouth native hero," The Washington Post said. The petition garnered 13,500 signatures in just four days, with an initial goal of 15,000 total.
“Who better to encapsulate the culture and spirit of the city enshrined in a new monument than Grammy Award winning rapper, dancer, and record producer Missy 'Misdemeanor' Elliott?” Coflin wrote in the petition.
“Together we can put white supremacy down, flip it and reverse it," he wrote, referencing the "flip it and reverse it" lyrics in Elliott's 2002 hit song "Work It."
Coflin said he wants to see his city focus on positivity and he believes Elliott is the perfect depiction of that.
“Unfortunately history is kind of a mixed bag of bad and good,” he said in an interview. “I wanna show we can honor the positivity that’s happening today in Portsmouth and I think no one better suits that than Missy Elliott.”
Coflin said he didn't expect the petition to garner so many signatures so quickly, but he's happy to see others band with him.
“I thought it was kind of a pipe dream,” Coflin said. “But the more it got out there and the more exposure it’s getting, the more I think it’s a real possibility. People are taking it seriously — whether the Portsmouth City Council will take it seriously is another matter.”
The petition focuses on Elliott's "humble beginnings," which started in Portsmouth, The New York Daily News noted.
Coflin sarcastically wrote that though Elliott experienced some tough times early on in her life, since then she's become a platinum artist having sold more than 30 million albums and she accomplished all of that "without even once owning a slave."
“Missy is all of us,” Coflin wrote. “Missy is everything the Confederacy was not.”
Elliott was flattered by the petition and took to Twitter to express her gratitude.