The word Latifah means “very kind” or “delicate” in Arabic. Queen Latifah is a New-Jersey born African-American whose real name is Dana Elaine Owens. Born on March 18, 1970, she witnessed her parents’ divorce at the tender age of ten and when she was twenty-two her elder brother was killed in a car accident. With that and the 1995 car-jacking and shooting of her boyfriend, she started using drugs and was sentenced to three years probation as well. However this was not what defines her. Queen Latifah is a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild recipient and has also been nominated for an Emmy for her role in Life Support in 2007. She plays an HIV positive woman and delivers it beautifully. Moreover, she is a singer and has been nominated for a Grammy.
Her career started with beat boxing in 1988 and she was a member of the original Flavor Unit, a crew of MCs. Their producer, DJ King Gemini was the one who made a recording of Latifah’s rap which was forwarded to the host of Yo! MTV Raps. The song then caught Tommy Boy Music’s Dante Ross’ attention, which ultimately helped Latifah release her first single “Wrath of Madness”. This jump-started her career as she moved on to rapping till 2002. A nineteen year old Latifah released her first album, All Hail The Queen in 1989. Along with her rapping, she also performed at numerous venues. One such opportunity was in 2007 when she sang at Hollywood Bowl in LA. Her album released in the same year titled “Trav’lin” was nominated for a Grammy in the category of the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.
In addition to music, Queen Latifah has a number of films that have been huge hits at the box office; Set It Off (1996), Living Out Loud (1998), The Bone Collector (1999), Chicago (2002), Bringing Down The House (2003), Taxi (2004), Last Holiday (2006), and Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) to name a few. She also had her own show The Queen Latifah Show aired in 2013. The summer of 2007 was one of the best for her because she featured in Hairspray, which was a big screen version
