Queen Latifah Biography
Queen Latifah is a rapper, actress, and singer from the United States. In 1989 at age 19, Latifah delivered her presentation collection All Hail the Sovereign, highlighting the hit single “Women First”. Noted for her work in music, film, and TV, Latifah has gotten different honors, including a Grammy Grant, an Emmy Grant, a Brilliant Globe Grant, three Screen Entertainers Society Grants, two NAACP Picture Grants, and has been designated for a Foundation Grant. She became the first hip-hop artist to have a star placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the year 2006.
Queen Latifah Age
She is 52 years old as of 2023. She was born Dana Elaine Owens on 18 March 1970 in Newark, New Jersey, United States. She celebrates her birthday on 18 March.
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Queen Latifah Family
She is Rita Lamae’s daughter, a teacher at Irvington High School (Latifah attended), and a police officer named Lancelot Amos Owens. When Latifah was ten, her parents split up. In 1992, Lancelot Jr., Latifah’s older brother, was killed in an accident involving a motorcycle that Latifah had bought for him. The actress Rita Owens, who had been battling heart failure since 2004, passed away on March 21, 2018.
Queen Latifah Partner
Latifah was the target of a carjacking in 1995, which also saw Sean Moon, her boyfriend, shot dead. She is dating Eboni Nichols. Nichols is a highly sought-after choreographer for film and television.
Queen Latifah Education
She graduated from Irvington High School despite attending Essex Catholic Girls’ High School in Irvington and a Catholic school in Newark, New Jersey. Queen Latifah attended Borough of Manhattan Community College after graduating from high school.
Queen Latifah Net Worth
She has an estimated net worth of $70 million.
Queen Latifah The Equalizer
The Equalizer, a reboot of the 1980s detective series of the same name, has been announced as an active television series by CBS. It stars Latifah in the lead role (her version has her renamed Robyn). All the more as of late, she marked an arrangement with Perceptible.
Queen Latifah CoverGirl
Pizza Hut, Jenny Craig, Curvation women’s underwear, and CoverGirl cosmetics all use Latifah as a celebrity spokesperson. She is the face of her own cosmetics line, the CoverGirl Queen Collection, which is targeted at women of color. Queen and Queen of Hearts perfumes are also available from Latifah. Latifah was chosen as the godmother of Carnival Cruise Lines’ Carnival Horizon on May 23, 2018. In addition to singing, Queen Latifah is the author of Ladies First: A Guide to Self-Esteem and Confidence: The Secrets of a Powerful Woman.
Queen Latifah Career
In addition to incorporating elements of R&B, soul, and dance, Latifah’s music typically incorporates hip-hop, jazz, and gospel. She has a vocal range of two octaves. Queen Latifah can sing and rap in addition to being a contralto. She cites Bessie Smith as one of her musical influences in addition to EPMD, KRS-One, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and Run–D.M.C. as her primary musical influences.
Hip-hop, reggae, soulful backing vocals, boppish scatting, snappy horn back-ups, and house music are all present on Al Hail the Queen. She portrayed the work as “an innovative outlet… what’s more, in some cases it can become like a paper that individuals read with their ears.”
At the beginning of her career, Queen Latifah’s lyrics were characterized as Afrocentric and woman-centered. During public appearances and music videos, the rapper frequently wore looks that were Afrocentric. These looks eventually became her signature. Michelle Wallace of The New York Times wrote in 1990 that her work “seems worlds apart from the adolescent, buffoonish sex orientation of most rap” and that it was “politically sophisticated.” AllMusic described her as “arguably the first MC who could properly be described as feminist” due to her persona of “strong, intelligent, and no-nonsense.” At the time, Queen Latifah did not identify as a feminist and said that her music was not just for women. According to author Tricia Rose, Black female rappers probably did not identify with feminism during that time period because it was perceived as a movement that primarily addressed issues affecting white women.
Midway through 1996, media reports indicated that Queen Latifah’s diss record “Name Callin’,” which appeared on the Set It Off soundtrack, had sparked disagreements between Foxy Brown and Latifah. In response, Brown questioned Latifah’s sexuality further in a number of interviews with public radio and made allegations that she was “checking her out” at musical events. In the 1998 diss record “10% Dis,” Brown repeatedly questioned Latifah’s sexuality and accused her of being envious.
“Name Callin’ Part II” was Latifah’s response to Brown’s diss record by late spring 1998. On the record, Latifah criticizes Brown for her reliance on sex appeal, suggesting that Brown must wear baggy clothes to conceal her “half-assed flow.” In a response-diss record titled “Talk to Me,” Foxy Brown mocked Latifah’s television talk show ratings and then made a number of homophobic remarks to both Latifah and Queen Pen, a newcomer at the time.
Latifah was dubbed “the winner” of the feud by a significant portion of the media. In reference to Latifah’s 1990 single “Ladies First,” hip-hop publication Ego Trip stated that Latifah had won the dispute with her diss record “Name Callin’ Part II” and that she had demonstrated that “the lady’s still first.” Brown and Latifah reconciled in the year 2000; Brown performed her song “Na Na Be Like” on The Queen Latifah Show to demonstrate that the truce was genuine.
Pitchfork referred to Queen Latifah as the “most recognizable female rapper” of the golden era of hip hop, citing her groundbreaking success in the late 1980s and early 1990s as one of the best female rappers. Steve Huey, a writer for AllMusic, stated that Latifah “was the first one to become a bona fide star” despite the fact that she was “certainly not the first female rapper.” Jessie Carney Smith described her as “rap’s first feminist” and “one of the few women to make a mark in the male-dominated field of rap music” in the book Notable Black American Women. She was called “one of the major forerunners for women in modern hip-hop” by Variety and “a pioneer of female rap” by The Guardian.
Throughout her career, she has been referred to as “Queen of Hip Hop” and “Queen of Rap” in a number of media publications, including New York magazine (1990), through editor Dinitia Smith. “A talented crew of women rappers to make their own way onto the charts as the 90s progressed” was the AllMusic editor’s assessment of Latifah’s achievement as the first solo female rapper to receive RIAA certification for an album (Black Reign). Additionally, her breakthrough contributed to the rise of New Jersey in hip hop. She was the first rapper to take part in the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXII in 1998.
Her afrocentric feminist music video for “Ladies First,” according to an African American Review journal, presented a “televisual moment” and disrupted the continuity of sexism and racism that dominated the music videos at the time. One of the first texts to address the declining standards of male-female relationships in community life, the song appeared on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. It “offered hip-hop for the development of pro-female pro-black diasporas political consciousness,” according to author Tricia Rose. Okla Jones wrote in Consequence that the lyrics to the song “U.N.I.T.Y.”—which addressed other forms of disrespect and addressed slurs directed at women in hip-hop culture—paved the way for future female rappers to be “their authentic selves.”
Queen Latifah Movies
- 2022 – The Tiger Rising
- 2022 – Hustle
- 2022 – End of the Road
- 2019 – The Trap
- 2017 – Girls Trip
- 2016 – Miracles from Heaven
- 2016 – Ice Age: Collision Course
- 2014 – 22 Jump Street
- 2013 – House of Bodies
- 2012 – Ice Age: Continental Drift
- 2012 – Joyful Noise
- 2011 – The Dilemma
- 2010 – Valentine’s Day
- 2010 – Just Wright
- 2009 – Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
- 2008 – Mad Money
- 2008 – What Happens in Vegas
- 2008 – The Secret Life of Bees
- 2007 – Hairspray
Queen Latifah TV Shows
- 2021–present – The Equalizer
- 2021 – Maya and the Three
- 2020; 2022 – Red Table Talk
- 2020 – Hollywood
- 2020 – When the Streetlights Go On
- 2019 – The Little Mermaid Live!
- 2017 – Empire
- 2017 – Carpool Karaoke: The Series
- 2017 – Flint
- 2016–19 – Star
- 2016 – Ice Age: The Great Egg
- 2015 – Bessie
- 2015 – The Wiz Live!
- 2015 – Lip Sync Battle
- 2014 – Hot in Cleveland
- 2014 – Jimmy Kimmel Live!
- 2013–15 – The Queen Latifah Show
- 2012 – Let’s Stay Together