Queen Latifah: Champion for Black Artists

Dana Elaine Owens, popularly known as Queen Latifah, is known for Queen collection movies, development for women color, and film mentoring. 

In a recent interview with CNN, she said:

“I’m really proud of what we’ve done with the Queen Collective,” she said. “No one could have foreseen that this would be happening at the same time. I just hope we’re able to really make some true change at this point. I want to see that happen in my lifetime.”

The famous American actress is also a rapper, singer, producer, and songwriter. She released her first debut album in 1989 under Tommy Boy Records, “All Hail the Queen,” featuring the hit single “Nature of a Sista.” 

The 50 years old woman received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and gained popularity with her role as Matron “Mama” Morton in the musical film Chicago in 2002. 

Queen Latifah won a Grammy Award on her third album “Black Reign” in 1993 featuring the famous hit “U.N.I.T.Y.” which was a significant influence on women, and the record was peaked at 23 on the Billboard Hot 100.

She has appeared in several movies such as  Taxi (2004), Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2005), Beauty Shop (2005), Last Holiday (2006), Joyful Noise (2012), and Girls Trip (2017). She also started her daytime show “The Queen Latifah Show” in 2003 on C.B.S. and has sold over two million records of her album.

Queen Latifah has been described as a “feminist rapper.”

Supporting the “Black lives matter” movement, she said, “I’m the daughter of a police officer. My brother was a police officer, and he passed away at 24 when I was 22 in a motorcycle accident, but I know why he joined the police force. He did it to make a difference, and at the same time, he knew who the bad cops were.” 

“The police need a way out of their own system. If they can’t do it themselves and they’re trapped in their own cycle of repeating and they can’t get off this hamster wheel of having terrible, racist, dangerous cops and terrible policing tactics, then we need to help them by changing it. If we’ve got to dismantle it, reform it, defund it, whatever those in power are beginning to figure out as a way to change it, they need to do that because they can’t keep killing us,” she said.

“I need to get someone like you to hail me a cab because a cab won’t stop for me,” Latifah said. “Do you know how many times I’ve had to do that? Ask a white person to hail me a cab because it wouldn’t stop for me? It’s that simple, that kind of racism that makes you feel so dejected and feel like damn, you make me feel like so less than.” 

She compared the MeToo movement to the current racism protests.

Latifah said, “All it was saying was listen to me. Believe me when I’m telling you this and I think that’s what we’re saying right now, believe me.”

“You had to see murders on video in order to believe somebody,” she added, “something had to burn down for you to pay attention? Nobody wants to see people’s property and things get burned to the ground because you don’t even know who it belongs to. Somebody could have been black and working their whole life to build it. But the system is what needs to be burned down, the system of this is what caused this and caused this eruption and this anger.”

Queen Latifah gave a piece of advice to those wanting to end systemic racism and effect change. She said,

“Look at the people who work right around you. Start having the conversations. Definitely start educating yourself. Listening to the people around you. If you look around you and everybody is white, that’s a problem and I’m talking about the people in your workplace,” Latifah said.

 “The people you communicate with. Are ya’ll having conversations about this? Are you dialoguing about it? Are you digging deeper? Are you listening to what people are saying?”

“Just support people,” she added. “Support people who have been disadvantaged and just believe us.”