Queen Latifah
Recording artist, actress
Born: March 18, 1970, in Newark, New Jersey
Grew up in: East Orange, New Jersey
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2011: Arts & Entertainment
She started as a socially conscious, street-savvy rapper, but in the blink of an eye Queen Latifah transformed herself into a glamorous film and TV star.
The future Queen (born Dana Elaine Owens) is the daughter of a schoolteacher mother and a police officer father. She began rapping in an all-female group, Ladies Fresh, while attending Irvington High School, where she also performed as a power forward on the varsity basketball team. Enrolling in Manhattan Community College, she studied communications and continued rapping as a member of the New York City collective Flavor Unit.
Adopting the stage name Latifah (meaning delicate or sensitive in Arabic), she made a demo tape that reached the independent Tommy Boy Records. In 1988, the label released Latifah’s first single, “Wrath of My Madness.” An album, “All Hail the Queen,” came out the following year to positive reviews. She quickly gained recognition as a groundbreaker, bringing a woman’s view to the male-dominated hip-hop scene.
Moving to Motown Records, Latifah recorded the 1993 hit album “Black Reign.” A single from the album, “U.N.I.T.Y.”, took on issues of sexism and violence against women and earned Latifah a Grammy Award. By that time, she already had made her film debut in Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever.” More movie and TV roles followed, and in 1993, Latifah landed a starring role in the Fox-TV series “Living Single.” It ran for five seasons.
More film work followed, including supporting roles in “Set it Off” and “The Bone Collector.” From 1999-2001, Latifah had her own talk show, which she would reprise in 2013. Her acting career reached a crescendo in 2002 when she earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Mama Morton in the film musical “Chicago.” Subsequent films included “Bringing Down the House,” “Beauty Shop,” “Taxi” and “Hairspray.”
Over recent decades, Latifah has shown no signs of slowing down. In 2007, the made-for-TV film “Life Support” earned Latifah a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Emmy nomination. Other notable films include “Joyful Noise” (2012) and “Girls Trip” (2017). Since 2021, she has starred in the CBS-TV crime drama “The Equalizer.”
Throughout much of her acting career, Latifah continued to be admired as a recording artist who rapped about women’s issues. Her hip-hop recordings often feature elements of jazz, soul, and blues. Her musical depth was on display in the 2004 release, “The Dana Owens Album,” a collection of jazz and soul standards. In 2007, she performed a program of jazz and pop standards with an orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and released another standards album, “Trav’lin’ Light.”
In addition to reigning for several decades as an influential recording and film artist, Latifah has had parallel careers as a celebrity spokesperson, brand ambassador, and producer—the latter via her multimedia company Flavor Unit Entertainment. She is widely respected for her outspoken views on feminism and her positive portrayals of strong black women. The winner of many prestigious awards, Latifah received the BET Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021 and was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2023.