After a heartfelt intro that features both some of the deepest soul-searching any artist has ever christened a hotly-anticipated record with and one of the most unfortunate “if we only knew” lines ever spoken on a rap record, period (“You don’t see Bill Gates and Donald Trump arguing with each other ‘cause both of them got paper”), Missy (re)builds her style off an effort to reconcile her vision of hip-hop’s futurist drive and its eroding but never-forgotten traditions. And as Timbaland bolsters that vision by conflating old school and new school into his own personal grad school — the thesis being the paradoxical space-age throwback of “Work It,” recognizably vintage-analog in its components and ’80s-baby in its Blondie/Run-D.M.C./Rock Master Scott references but too weird for any point that preceded their late ’90s emergence (and full of so many hilarious declarations of feminine sexual enthusiasm that Cardi and Megan could’ve caught origin-story epiphanies). Other rearview nods to first-wave Wu-Tang (Method Man feature/demi-cover “Bring the Pain”), all-coasts boom-bap fundamentals (Hova indulging his nostalgia on “Back in the Day”), and “Double Dutch Bus” lyrical playground games (Ludacris-laced seesaw funk “Gossip Folks”) are offset by Missy and Tim’s continuation of using their respective literal and behind-the-boards voices to stretch sounds to the breaking point of overload. Though at this point, the inebriated-rubberband slink of “Slide” and the “No Scrubs”-gone-cyberfunk kiss-off “Ain’t That Funny” sound like welcome characteristic trademarks as much as they do deliberate envelope-pushing experiments.