b. Dana Elaine Owens, 18 March 1970, Newark, New Jersey, USA. Rap's first lady, Queen Latifah, broke through in the late 80s with a style that picked selectively from jazz and soul traditions. The former Burger King employee maintained her early commitment to answer the misogynist armoury of her male counterparts, and at the same time impart musical good times to all genders. After working as the human beatbox alongside female rapping crew Ladies Fresh, she was just 18 years old when she released her debut single, "Wrath Of My Madness", in 1988. A year later, her debut long-player All Hail The Queen enjoyed fevered reviews: an old, wise head was evident on the top of her young shoulders. Production expertise from Daddy-O, KRS-One, DJ Mark The 45 King and members of De La Soul doubtlessly helped as well. By the time of her third album Black Reign (1993), she had moved from Tommy Boy Records to a new home, Motown Records, and revealed a shift from the soul and ragga tones of her acclaimed second album Nature Of A Sista (1991) to sophisticated, sassy hip-hop. The stand-out track "U.N.I.T.Y." won the 1994 Grammy Award for Best Solo Rap Performance.
Queen Latifah subsequently embarked on a career as an actor, notably in the hit streetwise black comedy, Living Single, where she played magazine boss Khadijah James. Other movie credits included Jungle Fever and House Party 2 (both 1991), and Juice (1992). As if that were not enough, she additionally set up her own Flavor Unit record label and management company in 1993, as an outlet for new rap acts as well as her own recordings. The first release on it, "Roll Wit Tha Flava", featured an all-star cast including Naughty By Nature's Treach, Fu-Schnickens' Chip-Fu, Black Sheep's Dres and D-Nice. She also guested on the Shabba Ranks single, "Watcha Gonna Do". Previous collaborations had included those with De La Soul ("Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children", in that band's infancy) and Monie Love (the agenda-setting "Ladies First").
During the 90s, Queen Latifah was the epitomy of an intelligent cross-section of hip-hop influences. Though a forthright advocate of her race's struggle, she is also the daughter of and brother to policemen. Black Reign, in fact, is dedicated to the death of that same brother: "I see both sides. I've seen the abuse and I've been the victim of police who abuse their authority. On the other side you've got cops getting shot all the time, you got people who don't respect them at all". While a little too strident to live up to the Arabic meaning of her name (Latifah equates to delicate and sensitive), Queen Latifah remains one of the most positive role models for young black women (and men) in hip-hop culture: "Aspire to be a doctor or a lawyer, but not a gangster". As one of the singles lifted from Black Reign advocated: "Who You Calling A Bitch?".
Following a lengthy hiatus owing to acting commitments, Queen Latifah returned to recording with 1998's Order In The Court, but the album sounded dated compared to recent developments in the rap world. Following this release there was another long wait for fans of her music career as she returned to acting, by now established as a leading player in Hollywood with appearances in Brown Sugar (2002), Chicago and Bringing Down The House (both 2003) and Scary Movie 3 (2003). She surprised many by eschewing rap and recording a vocal collection as her musical comeback, although she had already appeared on screen singing jazz standards in the 1998 movie Living Out Loud. The album was released in 2004 to polite reviews, but by now Queen Latifah was firmly established as an actor. In January 2006, she became the first hip-hop artist to be honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Her first album for the Verve Records label, released the following year, repeated the formula of its predecessor, with straightforward readings of pop standards delivered in a tasteful manner that was a far cry from her days as a proto-feminist rapper.
