Born Dana Elaine Owens on March 18, 1970, she is better known by her stage name Queen Latifah.

Queen Latifah is an American rapper, actress, producer, entrepreneur and singer. She is the only daughter of Lancelot, a police officer, and Rita, a high school art teacher in Newark, NJ.

Latifah grew up in nearby East Orange in a house that she remembered as being full of a variety of music - from her mother’s jazz to the musicals she loved watching on TV.

Latifah was raised in the Baptist church and attended Catholic school in Newark, New Jersey. Her stage name, Latifah meaning "delicate” and "very kind” in Arabic, was given to her by her cousin when she was eight.

In school, it was immediately clear that Latifah - who had been given the nickname from a Muslim cousin - was multi-talented and driven to succeed.

Her early music success had paved the way for a whole new generation of female rappers, and it was only a matter of time before Latifah’s iconic image was recognized as a hugely appealing draw for filmgoers too.

Queen Latifah was certainly not the first female rapper, but she was the first one to become a bona fide star.

She had more charisma than her predecessors, and her strong, intelligent, no-nonsense persona made her arguably the first MC who could properly be described as feminist.

Her third album, Black Reign, was the first album by a female MC ever to go gold, a commercial breakthrough that paved the way for a talented crew of women rappers to make their own way onto the charts as the ‘90s progressed.

 Latifah herself soon branched out into other media, appearing in movies and sitcoms and even hosting her own talk show.

Yet even with all the time she spent away from recording, she remained perhaps the most recognizable woman in hip-hop, with a level of respect that bordered on iconic status.

Having built herself into a one-woman entertainment empire with strength, unending enthusiasm, versatility and panache, she is certainly a force to be reckoned with and a continually rising star to be closely watched.

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