THE SURPRISING thing about the induction of Missy Elliott into the Songwriters Hall of Fame this year is not that it has taken too long—the usual complaint of fans—but that it has happened so soon. A writer becomes eligible for membership 20 years after their first commercial release. Ms Elliott’s solo career began in 1997 so it has taken little more than two years of eligibility for her to receive the honour. It is richly deserved, given the consistently high quality of her music, but it is surprising nonetheless, given that the institution rarely recognises hip-hop artists. Ms Elliott is only rap’s third inductee after Jay-Z and Jermaine Dupri, and its first such woman.

Ms Elliott is one of the true geniuses of the form. She is to rap what Prince was to R’n’B, both in terms of her impact upon the genre and her ability to weave in styles and strands from outside it. Her first major hit, “Sock It 2 Me”—a jaunty paean to the joys of heterosexual sex, a subject she has always celebrated with candour—sampled the Delfonics’ “Ready or Not Here I Come (Can’t Hide from Love)”, which had only the previous year been the basis of a hit for the Fugees. Where their version amounted to rap karaoke, Ms Elliott used its horn hook to build a catchy new tune, creating something altogether fresh.

She would do the same in following years with other then-fashionable sounds. “Miss E… So Addictive” (2001) reworked garage, house and bhangra; “Under Construction” (2002) channelled “Dirty South” hip-hop, with its emphasis on its soul and funk roots; “This Is Not A Test!” (2003) nodded to crunk. She has always taken sources from the present and made them feel as if they come from the future, by dint of deploying them in ways nobody else has yet thought of. Her wild, lewd humour and her knack (building on black vernacular) for making language into a form of percussion (“You think you can handle this badonkadonk-donk?”) are key to her method, as is her capacity to switch between an inimitable rap style and sweet, melodic vocals. These qualities have made her music instantly recognisable even as it has evolved.

There are only six Missy Elliott albums, running from “Supa Dupa Fly” in 1997 to “The Cookbook” in 2005—a long-promised seventh has yet to appear—yet there is no more formidable body of work in hip-hop. Unlike Prince, she has relied on collaborators to realise her vision. Timbaland, her writing and producing partner, and Hype Williams, an outstanding video director, were both crucial to her early success. Perhaps a more apt analogy would be that she was to the turn of the millennium what Bob Dylan was to the 1960s and David Bowie the 1970s: an artist who not only redefined her medium but the culture around it, too. In Ms Elliott’s case, she became a figurehead for a more playful style of rap that gave away nothing in force and in swagger.

So why is it that Ms Elliott is not recognised as belonging in the same rank of solo artists as Prince, Bowie and Mr Dylan, and that such a question might elicit scorn? It is not as if she is an obscure or cult figure. Only one of her albums has failed to go platinum in America; she has four Grammy wins and 22 nominations to her name. “Work It”, “Get Ur Freak On” and “4 My People” are treasured hits. In 2015, as a guest artist with Katy Perry, she took part in the most watched halftime performance in Super Bowl history.

The answer lies, at least in part, in the fact that she is female. While women are often celebrated as singers and stars, it is much more difficult for them to be recognised as game-changing creative forces (in recent years critics have opined on “the sexism of ‘genius’”). Moreover, she is a woman in rap, a music form that is on the whole still notoriously macho and remains subject to the hoariest of cultural prejudices regarding race. Ms Elliott has faced this double battle with determination, matching her male counterparts for brazen braggadocio, mixed with gleefully assertive sexuality, and underpinned by sheer talent and ingenuity. She has been as vital to forging a path in rap for female artists as Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell were for rock performers and singer-songwriters respectively. Like Ms Smith and Ms Mitchell, her impact on music more widely has been overlooked in favour of her influence on women—as if nobody else had picked up on her ideas.

Credit, then, to the Songwriters Hall of Fame for its acknowledgement of Ms Elliott’s artistry. It will hardly be news to her numerous fans, but it will be heartening if the accolade prompts a wider reevaluation of her standing.