Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah
Dana Elaine Owens, known professionally by her stage name Queen Latifah, is an American rapper, songwriter, singer, actress, model, television producer, record producer, comedian, and talk show host. Born in Newark, New Jersey, she signed with Tommy Boy Records in 1989 and released her debut album All Hail the Queen the same year, featuring the hit single "Ladies First". Her second album, Nature of a Sista, was her final album with Tommy Boy Records...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth18 March 1970
CityNewark, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
The good thing about movies is that they're subjective. You can connect to different themes depending on your own perspective.
I like to service the full audience of America, so I try to do things that are just real artistic, like when they don't have the most money, but it's a great piece of work. Then, there are big, fun comedies and big animated movies for kids. I want to do things for my nieces and nephews. Ultimately, we're trying to deliver something entertaining to an audience. As long as it can entertain the audience, and it makes me or my niece and nephew laugh or cry, then I think it's good.
I'm as involved as I can be. Whenever I'm asked to do something, I always tend to show up.
I tend to share whatever I know in general. I've never been a person to horde information for the sake of my own skin, you know what I mean? Not share so somebody doesn't take your job, I've never had that kind of insecurity. I also had a management company, too, so we were always one of those companies that shared information with our artists. Whatever they wanted to know, as much as they wanted to know, they could know.
When I want to push myself and do intense workouts, I do that, but I'm not going to do it because anybody thinks I should look a certain way. It's really more about how I feel and about being healthy.
I write pretty often. I have a home studio. Music is what I do for fun. I never get tired of it, so to take a break from [TV and movies], I would go make some music.
We all have to show up and do our job regardless of our life circumstances or situations. We don't have to do it with an attitude or whatever but maybe we do that day. Everyone understands that life happens and we have to create a whole other life where our life doesn't even exist. You know, our real life doesn't exist, these characters exist. And that is our life. And that's who we are.
Roxanne Shanté was kind of the first female to really come out and get respected by dudes, because she went at dudes real hard and battled them and freestyled a lot, and really came off the head a lot.
I never wanted to give up my power. I wanted to be able to make my own decisions, so that's why I became involved in management, bottom line.
We had a blast. I can't even remember having this much fun making a movie. It was challenging, of course, but it was wonderful.
I lost relatives to AIDS. A couple of my closest cousins, favorite cousins. I lost friends to AIDS, high school friends who never even made it to their 21st birthdays in the '80s. When it's that close to you, you can't - you know, you can't really deny it, and you can't run from it.
I know a lot of people who really aren't beautiful because their attitudes are very nasty... Whether I make the 50 most beautiful list or not, I'm always going to feel like I'm number one most beautiful to myself... I get that from my mom, and my daddy and my friends who raised me.
I feel like I've set the example for loving your body no matter what size it is, but I also can set the example for being healthy as well.
My legs are nice, my lips are shapely, and my breasts are pretty. They popped up when I was 11 and they weren't small then. I was teased, but now those kids wish they had what I have!