Touched by a tour, finally

The studio is her comfort zone. Missy Elliott is happy there, usually somewhere deep in the South, making her own records or writing and producing tracks for others with her main collaborator, Timbaland. In seven years, she has released nearly as many albums, a pace that is almost as rare as her continued multi-platinum success. And if she could, the rapper-producer would be in the studio right now.

“It comes pretty easy for me when it comes to that,” Elliott says, talking from a hotel room in Uniondale, N.J., just hours away from performing at Nassau Coliseum. “As a writer and producer, I could have a new record out every day.”

The road has been less a home than an obligation, so she’s kept her tours short and sporadic. There have been good times, but she was never sad when a tour ended -- until perhaps this year, with her current road trip with Beyonce and Alicia Keys, which arrives Saturday for two nights at the Pond of Anaheim.

The stellar lineup of torrid hip-hop and soul, she says, reminds her of shows she saw as a young fan in Virginia, hip-hop nights with the likes of Public Enemy, Salt-N-Pepa and Heavy D, all on a single stage. She knows what it can mean for fans.

The women headlining the Ladies First Tour share many of the same listeners, as their styles and talents overlap, complement and contrast. Now Elliott says she will be sorry when the month-long tour ends next week.

“We three are different, and we all have our own styles,” Elliott says. “With Alicia you’re gonna get the singing, the piano, so she has something to give that is separate from us. I look at Beyonce, and she gives that energy, that singing. Me, I’m not one that really likes to sing -- I rap. And I like to dance into the wild hours. We don’t have to be competitive.”

Not that many could compete on her level. Elliott has scored platinum hits every time out, beginning with her 1997 solo debut, “Supa Dupa Fly,” which conquered radio and MTV with funky weird beats and words of attitude and giddy self-worth. She began this tour in support of her fifth album, “This Is Not a Test,” but it was only in February that Elliott picked up another Grammy for the last one.

She is prolific, and her excitement for the music and pop culture of her youth can still be heard within the grooves. Her records are a dependable source of blunt talk on sex and men, never humorless or designed simply for shock value, but weighing in on contemporary obsessions and sexual healing. “Everybody can’t get out and do a record, especially with females -- they’re scared, because they’re supposed to act ladylike,” Elliott says. “I’m their voice, and I try to do it in a classy but not trashy way, to say these are the topics we like to talk about as females.”

Amid the beats and good times, the new album also includes a bit of social commentary, with “Wake Up” satisfying Elliott’s personal need to warn fans that happiness is not about the material wealth seen in music videos. The cars, the phones, the clothes, the guns -- bling is not the answer, or not the only one, she raps: “I got the Martin Luther King fever / I’m a feed ya whacha teacha’ need to preach ya.”

Her aim is to “just let them know that if you don’t have those things, it’s cool. As a matter of fact, you are flyer when you don’t have those things because they are just accessories. That doesn’t make a person fly or cute or the hottest kid on the block,” she says.

Born in Portsmouth, Va., in 1971, she now spends much of her down time in Miami. Her longevity as a musical leader in the tradition of Madonna or Dr. Dre is rooted back to her commitment in the studio, isolated with Timbaland and other collaborators, always searching for the crazy beats and hooks that will dazzle her and her fans.

“You’ve got to switch it up if you want to last in this game,” she says. “I pretty much go with gut and go with feeling, and I’m not a radio listener, I’m not a TV watcher, so I really don’t know what’s hot out there. I have to create stuff on my own and pray that the audience will embrace it.”

Music remains her obsession, she insists, even as she dabbles in acting and is preparing for a still-untitled reality TV show that will be taped on the road after the Ladies First Tour ends. Elliott would not say much about the show, but her website announced months ago a search for “aspiring performers.”

Elliott figures she has much to teach about the reality of pop stardom. “By the time you finish [watching], I think people will have a different take on being an artist. They only get a chance to see the videos and the cars and the jewels. But half those cars don’t even belong to the artists,” she says with a laugh. “That’s the reality right there.”

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Here’s to the ladies

Despite scattered complaints about overlong set changes and the absence of one billed star at one show (Alicia Keys missed the Dallas date because she was inducting Prince into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), the Ladies First Tour, featuring Beyonce, Missy Elliott and Keys, has earned generally good reviews. A sampling:

* “From infectious oddball Elliott’s Jacques Cousteau-fever-dream set design to throwback Keys’ funked-up piano wizardry to wonder-woman Beyonce’s gyrating-gymnast-with-a-

heart-of-gold finale, the Ladies First Tour was a four-hour display of spectacular show-womanship.”

-- The Washington Post, April 9

* “Sure, there was music -- nearly three hours’ worth, with Beyonce (first name only, please), Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott. This extravaganza ... was about the costumes and the dancing and the atmosphere of the show, and any music was merely a vehicle.”

-- The Hartford Courant, April 11

* “Elliott’s frantically paced 30-minute set was all b-girl attitude glittered up for a night out on the town. Rather than being carried over the audience, as Beyonce would be later in the evening, Elliott sprinted through it in her black-and-yellow tracksuit while two bodyguards struggled to keep up.... Keys dispensed with spectacle to deliver what was easily her most confident and commanding concert yet in Chicago. Like Aretha Franklin, Keys is at her best when she’s accompanying herself on grand piano, and she spent the bulk of the set in that sweet spot.”

-- Chicago Tribune, April 5

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Ladies First Tour

Who: Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Missy Elliott

Where: Arrowhead Pond, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim

When: Saturday and Wednesday,

7 p.m.

Price: $50.50-$90.50

Info: (714) 704-2500