Queen Latifah's 'Trav'lin' Light' and living large

Queen Latifah became one of rap's first female stars in 1989 with her debut album, "All Hail the Queen," and its classic single, "Ladies First." Since then, she has become a one-woman entertainment conglomerate with a powerful presence not only in music, but in movies, television, fashion, cosmetics and artist management. Little wonder her 1999 autobiography, "Ladies First: Revelations of a Strong Woman," reads like a motivational book.

Despite occasionally sung choruses in her hip-hop hits, it wasn't until the 1998 film "Living Out Loud" that Latifah fans witnessed what may well be her oldest artistic impulse. In that romantic comedy, Latifah gave a luminous reading of the Billy Strayhorn classic "Lush Life," revealing a rich, smoky alto ideal for singing jazz standards.

That performance opened doors, landing Latifah the role of matron "Mama" Morton in the 2002 Oscar-winning musical "Chicago" and earning her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. It also led to two standards albums, 2004's "The Dana Owens Album" (Owens is her birth name) and the new "Trav'lin' Light."

"I think I've always wanted to sing since I was a little kid," Latifah says. "I always felt I listened to different music than a lot of my peers, especially being a little black kid growing up in Newark. Actually, I found that a lot of my friends listened to different kinds of music — a lot of rock 'n' roll, a lot of reggae — and in my family, definitely a lot of jazz. My dad plays nothing BUT jazz."

Although some fans may have been surprised at her turn to standards, they've come to know 37-year-old Latifah as a perpetual forward-motion machine, eager to explore new possibilities rather than rest on past laurels.

"I've found that in my career I've had to wait for people to catch up to me on a lot of things, whether in hip-hop, or acting, or my appearance or my size, or in being able to accept this music," Latifah says. "I've been very fortunate in the sense that the audience has always given me a shot. Everything that I've tried doesn't always work, but I've always gotten a crack at it."

Latifah calls her current approach "jazz eclectic," a mix of jazz, blues, soul, pop and folk, including Phoebe Snow's "Poetry Man" (her mom's favorite song), Antonio Carlos Jobim's bossa nova classic "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars" and standards associated with Etta James, Nina Simone, the Pointer Sisters, 10cc and Smokey Robinson.

"They are the kinds of songs I could be singing at 60, 70, just like Tony Bennett," Latifah says, adding that two songs on the album have particular meaning. "Georgia Rose," from an obscure 1921 Broadway musical, became a racism-eschewing anthem in Carmen McRae's 1960s version.

"What the song is about — a little black girl who needs to have more self-love — touched my heart because I know certain people still struggle with their identity," Latifah says. "Whether it's skin color or body type, I'm always one to encourage confidence in young women, and that song has such a specialness and a sadness to it, it just touched my heart. And then to get Stevie Wonder (on harmonica) to seal the deal on it. How fortunate I am."

There's also "I'm Gonna Live Till I Die," a standard associated with Frank Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan. "That's my anthem right there, about living life to the fullest, and, honestly, that's the way I've been living," Latifah says.

In her 2006 film "Last Holiday," Latifah played a character "who found out she had a very short time to live and decided to go LIVE, instead of worrying about everything and being concerned about everyone else but herself. It fit with who I want to be and who I like to inspire other people to be."

From the days of such anthemic rap classics as "Ladies First" and "U.N.I.T.Y.," Latifah's positive messages of confidence and self-empowerment have resonated with women regardless of age, ethnicity or size. She credits the drive and ambition that have fueled her multifaceted career to her parents (her mother is a teacher; her father is a police officer), who instilled a will to succeed and a commitment to treat other people with respect.

"It's what my parents pumped into my head," Latifah says. She adds: "My father involved me in so many things as a kid that my brother was allowed to do and made me feel that I wasn't so much 'a girl.' I was a girl, but it wasn't so much a bad thing. You get separated — 'boys can do this, but you can't do that' — and that's one of the first things that starts chipping away at your confidence. And then if you're black, you're going to have to work twice as hard as your white counterparts because of the racism in this country, and THAT chips away at your confidence.

"My parents just tried to prepare me for some of the reality that I might come across, but not with a sense of being defeated. Just that I could overcome any of that, but I would have to put my mind to it, be serious about it and really work for it."