Queen Latifah confessed that her goal with creating her signature hit “Ladies First” featuring Monie Love in 1989 was to promote unity among female rappers, according to Will Smith‘s new podcast, Class Of ’88.
When the New Jersey-bred pioneer signed her deal with Tommy Boy Records in 1988, she was one of the emcees who set the standard for women in Hip-Hop. So, when she dropped her debut album, All Hail The Queen, the following year with the breakout single, it became both “hardcore” and “revolutionary.”
“I had to [do it] because how am I going to make myself different from my heroes [MC] Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa, [and] Sweet Tee? How am I going to do this?,” Queen reflected. “I need to carve a path that’s different from them. You know, maybe not so far, but it has to be different, you know, and so that was the goal.”
When speaking on the record’s actual conception, the Just Wright actress explained, “I decided to call the record ‘Ladies First,’ and so a lot of it was, ‘Why am I beefing with these girls? Why do these girls keep beefing with each other? We can do a lot more if we stood together… i.e., ladies first. Why don’t I just embrace you, and maybe you’ll embrace me and let me encourage you, you know?’ Rather than saying, ‘Why you dissing each other?’… it was more like, ‘Hey, we ladies, let’s do this together. We can do this; we can do more together!’”
Throughout her career, Queen found herself immersed in rap beefs with Roxanne Shanté and Foxy Brown. However, all of that has since subsided and Queen, Roxanne, Da Brat, Latto, Saweetie, MC Lyte, and others took part in Netflix’s docuseries, Ladies First: A Story of Women in Hip-Hop, which detailed the impact of female rap artists.
Courtesy of Audible/Wondery
The Class Of ’88 podcast tells the story of Hip-Hop’s most pivotal year through the lens of Queen, Salt-N-Pepa, Darryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels, Rakim, Fab 5 Freddy, DJ Jazzy Jeff, and more. It is now streaming on Audible and Amazon Music.
