Missy Elliott put four historically Black college and university (HBCU) marching bands on one field at Norfolk State University on Sunday, October 18, and closed the night holding a plaque that named “Get Ur Freak On” a song of the century. The Missy Elliott HBCU Battle of the Bands started at 4 p.m. at William “Dick” Price Stadium in Norfolk, Virginia. Elliott, born on July 1, 1971, was raised in Portsmouth, a city that has already named a street after her.
The lineup was regional by design: three Virginia schools and Elizabeth City State from North Carolina.
- Norfolk State University’s Spartan Legion (host)
- Virginia State University’s Trojan Explosion
- Hampton University’s Marching Force
- Elizabeth City State University’s Sound of Class
Elliott framed the event in personal terms when it was announced in early October. “Virginia gave me so much, and HBCUs have played such an important role in shaping our culture, our music and our communities,” she said, adding that the day was about “celebrating where we come from while creating opportunities for where we’re going.”
A weekend built around a state holiday
The battle sat inside a larger Missy Elliott weekend. Organizers billed it as part of Missy Elliott Day, an honor established by former Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, and Portsmouth declared Saturday, October 17, Missy Elliott Day in the city. The band show was paired with the Missy Elliott Innovation Summit, aimed at college students and high school seniors interested in where music meets technology, education and business.
Sunday’s crowd filled the stadium. Norfolk State director of bands William Beathea said that drawing “this many people” gave each band a stage to show the work it had put in, an outcome he called “phenomenal.” Tickets were sold through the event’s own site, HBCUBandBattle.com.
Why Norfolk State was the natural host
Elliott’s ties to the school run back several years and come with paperwork. A short timeline:
August 9, 2022: Portsmouth City Council votes unanimously to rename part of McLean Street as Missy Elliott Boulevard, a change the university helped bring about; the renaming follows that October.
November 2022: the Spartan Legion performs for Elliott, a date the band now lists among its highlights.
December 10, 2022: at Norfolk State’s fall commencement, its 109th, Elliott receives an honorary doctorate and the Presidential Commencement Medallion, then hands the university a $20,000 check for its “area of greatest needs.” It was her second honorary doctorate, after one from Berklee College of Music in 2019.
October 18, 2026: she brings the band battle to the same campus.
The host band brings its own credentials. The Spartan Legion was founded in 1975, numbers more than 250 musicians, dancers and flag performers, and has been led since 2000 by Beathea and associate director Stephanie K. Sanders, both of whom came from rival programs in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. It was named HBCU Band of the Year in 2019, won a national battle of the bands in 2021 and took the Circle City Classic band title in 2024. Its signature piece, “Behold,” was written by Paul Adams.
The song on the plaque
“Get Ur Freak On” came from Miss E… So Addictive, released May 15, 2001, which debuted at No. 2 in the US with 250,000 copies sold in its first week. Timbaland, her production partner on most of her solo releases, was behind the boards, and the single won the Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance in 2002. It stayed in her set for the biggest stages, including her Super Bowl XLIX halftime medley in 2015 alongside “Work It” and “Lose Control.”
That makes 25 years between the album’s release and Sunday’s plaque, and the honor arrived in the hometown region rather than at an industry ceremony. Elliott, who has four Grammy Awards and in November 2023 became the first female rapper inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, featured this year on Kehlani’s “Back and Forth,” released April 10, 2026. Asked about her own music in an October 2025 interview, she said: “I got some stuff coming. Some fire.”
Further reading
Image: joanneconlon, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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