Missy Elliot’s Inspiring Graduation Speech Impacts Engineer

Missy's words encouraged her studio engineer Terance, who goes by the name Cool-T.

Missy Elliot, Graduation speech, Berklee, Terance Elam, Cool-T, Inspiring, Engineer

On Sunday, Missy Elliot shared a heartwarming story with her fans and followers about an engineer she recently worked with called Cool-T, revealing that they received degrees on the same graduation day.

Terance Elam (who also goes by CooL-T) was a student at Berklee College of Music when Elliot delivered her commencement speech in 2019. The multi-platinum recording artist became the first hip hop artist to receive

an honorary doctorate from Berklee, according to their official site. Berklee’s president Roger H. Brown praised Missy for “bending genres, breaking stereotypes, and pushing musical, visual, and stylistic boundaries.”

In social posts on Twitter and Instagram, Missy said she recently spent time in the studio with her engineer Terence who was “very quiet and didn’t say much.” Then, on the last day, Terence revealed a touching throwback moment with Missy.

She wrote on Instagram, “He said I was at the graduation when you got your doctorate’s at Berklee College and I remembered your speech about NOT QUITTING & now LOOK I’m here mixing your music.”

“You have come too far to quit…As long as you are breathing, it is never too late,” Missy said. “People will tell you, you too old. People will tell you, it’ll never work. Don’t believe that cause I’m standing here today and I’m quite sure these people can say the same thing and you all can say this cause look at you, you have graduated. So, I want to be a walking testimony and I want to see years from now people say ‘I graduated from Berklee School of Music and I remember that Missy Elliott said you have come too far to quit and I never gave up and I don’t want y’all to give up.”

Her speech from two years ago continues to inspire him and now Cool-T works as an engineer and intern manager at Tree Sound Studios in Norcross, GA according to Revolt TV.