Queen Latifah All Hail The Queen CD

Emerging from East Orange, NJ in the days when hip-hop gear meant kente cloth & afrika medallions àand fellow Native Tongues were achieving cross-over success on "Yo! MTV Raps" (guest appearances from De La Soul & Monie Love show a strong Native Tongues connection which eventually faded as the Queen placed more focus on developing her own Flavor Unit posse), Latifah added a more explicit afro-centric edge to the common sense feminism pioneered by MC Lyte and Roxanne Shante. She also added a more eclectic cross-section of sounds to their palette of samples. After briefly providing beat-box for the all-girl crew Ladies Fresh, she made her name as a solo artist with the reggae hook of "Wrath of My Madness" in 1988. While overall her debut LP relies on the sounds of break-beat legend Mark The 45 King, exceptions to the rule include a harder edged track contributed by KRS-ONE ("Evil That Men Do"), heavy rockers-style reggae laced by Daddy-O of Stetsasonic ("The Pros"), and a token house track ("Come Into My House"). Occasionally dated, ALL HAIL THE QUEEN nevertheless contains enough gems ("Latifah's Law," "Ladies First," "Wrath Of My Madness") to stand alongside any classic LP of its era.

As strong a buzz as Queen Latifah created with her debut single of 1988, "Wrath of My Madness" and its reggae-influenced B-side, "Princess of the Posse," one would have expected the North Jersey rapper/actress' first album, All Hail the Queen, to be much stronger. Though not a bad album by any means, it doesn't live up to Latifah's enormous potential. The CD's strongest material includes "Evil That Men Do," a hard-hitting duet with KRS-One addressing black-on-black crime and other social ills; the infectious hip-house number "Come into My House"; the rap-reggae duet with Stetsasonic's Daddy O "The Pros"; and the aforementioned songs. Unfortunately, boasting numbers like "A King and Queen Creation" and "Queen of Royal Badness" aren't terribly memorable. Especially disappointing is "Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children," a duet with De La Soul that, surprisingly, is both musically and lyrically generic. To be sure, Latifah's rapping skills are top-notch -- which is why All Hail the Queen should have been consistently excellent instead of merely good. [A Collectors' Choice edition was released in 2002 with the three bonus remixes removed.] ~ Alex Henderson



Recorded at Calliope Productions, Island Media, Greene Street, Studio 1212, and Power Play Productions, New York, New York.

Producers include: Prince Paul, D.J. Mark The 45 King, Louis "Louie Louie" Vega, Daddy-O, KRS-One.

Engineers include: Al Watts, Shane "The Doctor" Faber, Bob Coulter.Q - Highly Recommended - Included in Q's list of the Fifty Best Albums of 1990.