Supa Dupa Fly

When stylist June Ambrose was brought onto the Supa Dupa Fly project, the label asked how she would sell Missy Elliott to mainstream America. Her answer was to make Missy a "modern day cartoon character," a bold and playful image.

The cover, photographed by Kwaku Alston, shows Missy reclining on a cream sofa against deep red curtains, relaxed and fully in charge, with the album title stacked in red beside her. The same campaign produced the inflatable black suit Ambrose built for the video to "The Rain," directed by Hype Williams, which became one of the defining looks of late-1990s hip-hop.

Missy has kept the image close. For Halloween in 2019 she recreated the cover twenty-two years later and posted the two photos side by side, and they looked so alike that, she joked, even her mother could not tell which was new. The album was released on 15 July 1997. Gregory Burke designed the package, with art direction by Starr Foundation.