Dana Owens, AKA Queen Latifah, was born in Newark, N.J., on March 18, 1970. Her cousin gave her the moniker, Latifah -- which means "delicate" and "sensitive" in Arabic -- when she was 8. She has been making history ever since she played power forward on the Irvington High School girls' basketball team and led them to two New Jersey state championships. At the wise old age of 18, her magnificence became public when her debut single, 'Wrath of My Madness' hit the streets. In college, she got down with Afrika Bambaataa's Native Tongues collective and made Afrocentric history with her first album 'All Hail the Queen' in 1989. 'Ladies First,' the album's evocative single, captured the zeitgeist of late-'80s militant hip-hop.

She quickly made use of her natural Pisces instinct for being many different things to many different people by forming her management and production company, Flavor Unit Entertainment, and launching the career(s) of Naughty by Nature. Her second album, 'Nature of a Sista' followed, along with adversity, in 1991 when she was carjacked and her brother, Lance, died in a motorcycle accident. In 1993 she dropped 'Black Reign' on Motown, after being dropped by Tommy Boy due to soft sales. Grammy-garnering 'Black Reign' became the most popular album of her career, off the back of the song 'U.N.I.T.Y.' By then, Latifah had already gotten her acting chops with turns in 'Jungle Fever', 'House Party 2,' 'Juice' and 'The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.'

Her first golden age was perhaps the period from 1993 to 1997, with 'Living Single' on the air for four years and the cult classic 'Set It Off' hitting the big screen. In 1998 she sang a few jazz standards in the film 'Living Out Loud' ' –- a sign of things to come. The beginning of the 21st century saw Latifah fully morph into a jazzy chanteuse and bona fide movie star. She received an Oscar nomination for her role as Mama Morton in 'Chicago,' the first female MC to do so in the history of the Academy, and released a jazz record called 'The Dana Owens Album.' She stared in 'Bringing Down the House' with Steve Martin and 'Last Holiday' with hip-hop royalty LL Cool J. When she became the first rapper to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame she put it best by stating, "I think the reason that I am here is to inspire African-American women who are rappers, full-figured women to know that they can do it, too." This is why she’s making history.

Imitation Is the Best Form of Flattery

Basicially every rapper-turned-actor turned media mogul took a page from Queen Latifah. As quickly as she found success as a solo artist, she sought to bring other talent along and build her own entertainment institution while expanding her personal brand. Nowadays, this is the formula for hip-hop domination but back in the late '80s Latifah was one of the first practioners.

Words to Live By

"I've never really thought of myself as setting out to make history. I mean, number one, you won't see me make history anymore if I start thinking like that. When you're working so hard to achieve the next thing you don’t have time to sit back and pat yourself on the back about the things that you've already done because you’re always on a constant state of trying to achieve more."