Queen Latifah Show

During the remainder of the mid-1980's well into part of early 1990's, the rapper known as Queen Latifah was the hottest female hip-hop artists of her day,and some of the hip-hop classics that made her a living legend in the game were greats like "Ladies First",and so forth. By that time,she made the jump into the prime-time market on the hit series "Living Single",which ran for an astounding six seasons on FOX and made stars not only of Queen Latifah herself,but also comedian Kim Coles,Erika Alexander and Kim Fields(who already struck gold back in the late 1970's and early 1980's as character Tootie Ramsey on the hit series "The Facts Of Life"). By that time her prime-time series was still going strong and her musical career as well, she was already gaining ground as a astounding actress to especially in her electrifying role as "Cleo" in the 1996 crime-action fest "Set It Off",which also starred Vivica A. Fox, Kimberly Elise,and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Other movie offers came pouring in and at that time was doing both a hit weekly TV-series,movie roles,and still had the ruckus for churning out hip-hop records too,which to this day has never lost touch with. Then in early 2003,the artist known as "Queen Latifah",aka Dana Owens trimuphantly made the awards-season rounds as a distinguished thespian with an Oscar-nomination for her work as Best Supporting Actress for her role in the Oscar winning picture "Chicago". Million-dollar offers poured in for the suddenly sizzling actress as well as other offers to becoming the major spokeswomen for Maybelline cosmetics. Not only that she also put out not only another rap album but was shocking to some that Latifah can really sing beautifully as well. Her singing debut album was a smash hit and at that time offers were pouring in too.

This was particularly shocking too when she decided to become a weekly syndication daytime talk show host. "The Queen Latifah Show", premiered in syndication markets in September of 1999. This was a lowly rated daytime show,which only lasted no more than two seasons on the air. Hip-hop's first lady struggled with less-than-royal ratings despite the aid of friends and guests that appeared on the show. Guests like rap artists Mary J. Blige,Lauryn Hill(of The Fugees),along with P.Diddy(Sean Combs),not to mention cast members from her prime-time FOX show "Living Single"(Kim Coles,Kim Fields,and Erika Alexander) along with old-school superstars of their day ranging from the King of Punk Funk Rick James to lets say artists like Slick Rick,Kurtis Blow,and LL Cool J were some of the guests. But there was a softer side of Latifah too that had the good karma of making a difference in the community and one segment had the sheer impact of helping disadvantage kids' dreams come true. In other words,she gave more impact on the youth than any other and she went beyond the goal of making sure that these kids had a chance in life and society,making sure that than did well in school and stayed out of trouble. Other times the show went on location too,including one episode where Latifah grew up around in her hometown of East Orange,New Jersey.

By the time her show was shockingly renewed for a second season,which ended production in early 2001,however,the charismatic host was lost between her social responsibilities(former Vice President Al Gore and Ralph Nader were guests on the show including social activist Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson,to Chuck D. of the rap group Public Enemy were frequent guest that made appearances including one mystery guest that show up---Arsenio Hall!!!)to having her show become a sideshow attraction in the format of Jerry Springer,Maury Povich and not to mention Richard Bey. Queen Latifah tried to do too much and for one she was another one of the talk show disasters which follows in the steps of others who did the exact same thing.