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Queen Latifah is a highly acclaimed television and film actress, a label president,
an artist manager, and soon-to-be talk show host. She first started a rap group
called ladies Fresh as a young teen. Their music fell into the hands of Tommy
Boy Music employee Dante Ross, who instantly signed Queen-Latifah, and in 1988 distributed
her first single, "Wrath of My Madness." The song had a positive response,
which granted her the chance to launch a European tour, and a performance at Harlem's
Apollo Theater. The following year Queen-Latifah released her first album, All Hail
to the Queen, which sold more than one million copies. In 1991, Queen-Latifah became
executive officer of Flavor Unit Records and Management Company in Jersey City,
New Jersey. By the year 1993, the company signed seventeen rap groups. That same
year she recorded a jazz and reggae album titled Black Reign. The album sold 500,000
copies, and the single "U.N.I.T.Y." gained Queen-Latifah her first Grammy
Award in 1995. Shortly after, Queen-Latifah's fame morphed into film appearances, such
as roles in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever ,House Party II , and Set It Off. Queen Latifah
has grown into a one-woman entertainment corporation, proclaimed by the industry
as a force to be reckoned with raw talent with no sign of slowing down.
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