Queen Latifah

Even after almost two decades in music, Queen Latifah is still going strong and pushing her boundaries. Ever since her first single "Wrath of My Madness" dropped back in 1988, Queen Latifah has reigned as one of the smartest and most personable emcees in hip-hop. After making a name for herself as a rapper, she then branched out and recorded some R&B tracks and duets, while also pursuing a successful acting career.

This year, as a follow-up to 2004's Grammy-nominated jazz album, The Dana Owens Album, Queen Latifah released Trav'lin' Light, another collection of covers, interpretations and guest appearances. Geffen executive Ron Fair, who produced The Dana Owens Album, returns on Trav'lin' Light, working on the second half of the album.

Fair recently told QueenLatifah.com, "What's great about Queen Latifah records is for her, this is a way to step out and really enjoy herself. She has an incredible voice. She's a phenomenal singer, when you consider that she started out as a founding father — or mother, I should say — a seminal, important hip-hop artist, and then went on to become a movie star and all this time has possessed this incredible God-given talent as a vocalist."

Through the course of her career, Queen Latifah brought a strong and respectable female perspective to rap music and empowered others like herself to also persevere. Queen Latifah, born Dana Owens from Newark, NJ, was nicknamed Latifah after the Arabic word meaning "delicate" or "sensitive." Her music career first started to bloom in high school when she rapped and beatboxed for Ladies Fresh. Her regal moniker didn't come into effect until college, where she joined Afrika Bambaataa's Native Tongues collective.

Trav'lin' Light further explores Queen Latifah's softer side and her ability to pull off a terrific album of American pop, jazz and blues standards, including covers of Peggy Lee, Etta James, Smokey Robinson and Nina Simone and guest appearances by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu and George Duke.

From her Tommy Boy debut, All Hail the Queen, to her Grammy Award for her Top Ten hit, "U.N.I.T.Y.," to her current album, Trav'lin' Light, Queen Latifah has never been one to be boxed into any genre or pre-conception. She even conquered the world of film and television, starring in box office flicks and hit TV shows, including her own sitcom, Living Single, and the award-winning musical film, Chicago, for which she received an Oscar nod. Her dynamic rhymes may have earned her a throne as a hip-hop icon, but Queen Latifah's varied and focused passion in her crossover careers has also recognized her as a well-respected force in entertainment in general.

With her success, Queen Latifah has served as an inspiring role model for future female songwriters and artists. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, the Queen stated it best herself: "I feel like it's just time for us who's been in the game for a long time to extend ourselves to those who just got in it. Each one teach one, and I think that's been lacking more than anything. It's always going to come down to the women's essence. And that's the shot in the arm the game needs right now."

— Jin Moon


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