The Queen Latifah Show!

Queen Latifah is Coming to Daytime!!!

“Its like from the moment Oprah announced that she was retiring, everyone seemed like they were clambering to fill that vacuum…I had no interest in going on television and becoming the next Oprah Winfrey…Oprah is the best Oprah that there could ever be. I want to be the best Queen Latifah or nothing at all.” – Queen Latifah

Singer, Song-writer, Comedienne, Rapper, Actress, Producer, and more; we could continue to list the many Entertainment/Business Hats that this amazing woman has been wearing for the past 25 years.  That woman is non-other than Co-Ceo of Flavor Unit Entertainment, American Royalty, Queen Latifah. In her list of “talents”, the Academy Award winning artist also holds the title of Talk Show Host. From 1999-2001 Latifah (Dana Owens) was the host of her own talk show: The Queen Latifah Show where she covered a mix of various topics, and interviewed celebrity guest that included: Destiny’s Child, Brooke Shields, Denzel Washington and more.

However, due to wanting to do more with her acting career, she decided to put the show on hold while she pursued her very fruitful acting career. Now on September 16, 2013, the Queen will be returning to Daytime TV, bringing back for all her fans; The Queen Latifah Show. The show will be a multi-topic, daily syndicated show featuring celebrity interviews, performances (the Queen herself included), Latifah’s ventures to local communities across the country to share compelling stories, along with everyday people who are making a difference in their local community, and so much more. Queen and her business partner/childhood friend Shakim [Compere] of Flavor Unit will be working closely with her long time friends Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith who are producers of the show, along with Sony Pictures Televisions. Keeping with the same pattern of working with long time trusted friends, she also enlisted music industry friends: MC Lyte, DJ Jazzy Jeff, and DJ D-Nice to appear on the show.

“All talk shows love to appeal to women from 25-64, me, I would like to appeal to everyone…my audience has been very hard to define even from the beginning of my career…it’s never been an audience that you could just pinpoint and put in a box.” – Queen Latifah.

 

We got a chance to speak with the multi-talented Grammy winner about her new talk show:

Bell: Hi Latifah, I am a huge fan of your artistry by the way. Thank you so much for speaking with us!

QL: Thank you!

Bell: I love when Jada (Pinkett-Smith) talks because she is so enthusiastic. She was speaking about you and she said you “have the ability to connect to anyone” and that you “genuinely love people”, and that’s “something that cannot be faked”. One way you connect with people is via triumphs and tragedies, so what are one of your triumphs and tragedies will you share with your audience.

QL: Whew…I feel like I have been sharing my whole life! [Laughs] Honesty, it will just have to be something that comes up…like making it to work that day threw LA traffic that in itself is a triumph! [Laughs] Seriously though, there are so many triumphs, like making it through a tough time in my life, or making through the loss of a loved one. I think wherever I feel like I relate to someone, that’s something that could be talked about. I think I will share as appeals naturally…and that’s the connection with people. I think we have more in common than we tend to have different. I also find the differences very interesting. I know myself; I’ve been able to connect with so many people because I have so many parts to my personality. What those specific things are, I can’t say because to me it has to have a natural flow with whatever we are talking about on the show, but I will try to share as much as I can.

Bell: Right and you have been very open through out your entire career, which brings me to my follow up question. With a lot of celebrities, it appears like they are humble, but with you there’s naturalness to it. With all of your talents, how do you stay so humble and down to earth?

QL: Honestly, I think I work at it because it’s not like sometimes I don’t feel like saying “Man I’m Queen Latifah, why do I have to do the dishes?” but then I say “you should be lucky that you have a dish to even eat off of”. So as soon as I try to get supped up about it, God hits me with some little message you know. I have a lot of ways that I try to remain humble: 1. I am really close to my family and friends and they keep it real with me, they pat me on my back when I do a good job and slap me on my hand when I do bad; nevertheless, they love me. That’s more important to me than having a Hollywood career or being famous and making a lot of money. Having their love and respect is more important to me. [Also], I am human, I make mistakes, I’m not perfect; and knowing that [makes] it hard for me to get arrogant, or too conceited especially knowing that I didn’t get here by myself. I’ve been very blessed and I’ve had a lot of help along the way. I have people that pray with me. My grandmother sent me this daily devotional book (out the blue) with a little card and I read that every day. I can be mad about something and then I read that and I’m like “wow that’s an interesting lesson” and it just brings me back down to earth. Also if I feel like I’m having a rough day, something gives me prospective, I see someone who is a worst situation than me and they are handling it with character and strength and positivity, and I think “well who am I to complain”. I really just try to be a happy person and a peaceful person….its just something that I try to work at.

“It just comes down to talking to your momma.” – Queen Latifah, on bouncing the idea of the talk show off of her mother.

Bell: Nice, now after The Oprah Winfrey Show left air in 2011, a plethora of new daytime talk shows such as Bethanny, The real (with five host), and even Anderson Live popped up to fill the space, How do you feel about competition or comparisons?

QL: Hmmm, I really don’t try to over examine every show that’s out there…As a television watcher and talk show watcher, I know there are something’s I felt were missing from television; and I think one of them is heart, and an over all sense of entertainment for an hour. I think one of the advantages that I do have is I’m an entertainer; I’m an actor, I have a great sense of humor (I like to think), and I can sing, and I’m a Pisces [laughs] (just kidding). I think I can provide various aspects of entertainment from my experiences from my career, and I’m just different from everyone else in that sense. I think those qualities that I developed from earlier in my career will be very helpful for me in this arena.

Bell:  With that being said, what are your personal goals for the show and yourself as the host?

QL: My personal goal for the show is to make it a huge hit, I want it to be must see TV. If you can’t make it you have to DVR it. As a host, I just want to excellent at what I do, I just want to get better and better. I didn’t go to “hosting school” (I didn’t go to rap school, business school, I went to college but didn’t graduate) so everything I’ve learned in my career, I learned on the job. I study as much as I can and I use the brains and the talents that God gave me to execute all of these dreams. So for me as a host, I just want to get better and better and more comfortable to the point where it just feels like old shoes. So that would be my ultimate goal.

“In terms of our producers [of the show] I’m working with all of my old friends…we go back a long time, and I feel like they know me.” – Queen Latifah, on working with multiple producers on the show.

Bell: Amazing! I want to ask our Houston Style Magazine Reader questions now: The first one comes from twitter handle: @canonlybeob: When you originally hosted your show from 1999-2001 you left because you wanted to fulfill more with acting etc…What’s different this go around? If you get a deal from any other aspect of your talent will you leave again or are you committed to this Talk show?

QL: [Sarcasm] WHAT! If I get that rap deal! MAN IM LEAVING ALL OF THIS! [Laughs] That’s funny. I think we have come around that corner. I am actually completely committed to this. I have had this talk show deal for two years, for two years we have been working on this. I had to scale a lot of things back to galvanize my hold team and be here so that we can make it a hit. This is serious to me. If we can execute this concept, then this is something I can do for the rest of my life until I retire. I will be able to use all my abilities all in one place. I will be able to rap, sing, talk to famous celebrity people, and change peoples lives by showing their stories. I don’t know what other format you can do all of these things in so for me this is for all of us. We (producers) all look at this in the same way; we can do everything here [on the show]. So I’m in it for the long hall. Thank you [@canonlybeob] for this question.

Bell: The next question comes from our Instagram platform: @methusela1: What was the motive behind U.N.I.T.Y?

QL: The inspiration behind Unity was several things. Each verse is about something different. Ultimately the record is called U.N.I.T.Y because we need to all come together. At the time there were a lot of rappers coming out and the word B**ch were flying around so easily off of peoples tongue that I was like ok this is getting to be too much. Mind you I’m raised around a [a lot of] boys so four letter words were commonly were used, but to me it was the intention behind the word and it was being used to put women down. Women were not checking people like “Who are you calling a B**ch”? Those were the exact words that came out of my mouth, that’s how I felt and that’s what I put on the record. A lot of the rappers who used that word explained that they weren’t talking about women in general but a specific type of woman liked that record and respected me for it. I think it was empowering for everyone to hear that record. Once verses was about my cousin, who was being abused by her boyfriend, inspiring women to not let men put their hands on them. One of the verses were about gang running around school, and girls who were meek and nice are now running round and are fighting and just going to school to be popular and bullying people. So it was a check on the girls running around, my mom being a high school teacher would tell me these stories of girls slicing their peers face. So a verse was about realizing what you’ve done when you mature and what you have to live with. This record still stands today because we are still facing the same problems.

Bell: Right exactly very powerful song. Thank you so much for taking out time to speak with Houston Style Magazine. I will be tuning in at 2pm CST and live tweeting you during the show!

QL: Thank you so much!

“I want to make this show a hit because I feel like we can do something really special with this show.” – Queen Latifah

Latifah revealed that John Travolta will be her first guest on the show. She also revealed that she collaborated with Grammy award-winning Rock Icon, Lenny Kravitz (Kravitz Design Inc.) for her set design.

They both have a love for modern design, she wanted clean lines and fresh flowers and “he did an amazing job” said Latifah. The 43-year old mogul has her sleeves up ready to work and make “entertaining/meaningful TV”. She is looking to bridge the gap between all of her fans that are found in the different genres of her multi-faceted career.  The very excited new host went on to speak about how she has so many supporters. Amongst the well wishers are Oprah Winfrey who told her to be true to herself, Letterman, Jay Leno, and Ellen DeGeneres.

The Talk show will be taped before a live studio audience at Sony Pictures Studios in Los Angeles, and will air on all 29 CBS Television Stations owned-and-operated channels starting Monday, September 16^th, 2013. For more information about The Queen Latifah Show, please visit www.queenlatifah.com