All hail the queen! The only queen we recognize: Queen Latifah!
Queen Latifah, whose real name is Dana Owens, appeared on the unofficial “Living Single” podcast, “ReLiving Single,” hosted by co-stars Kim Coles and Erika Alexander. Latifah played Khadijah James, Coles played her cousin Sinclaire, and Alexander played their neighbor Max.
As expected, Queen Latifah’s appearance was bountiful and joyful. The stories they shared about how the show started, working on set with each other, and what the show meant for them were nothing short of epic. The episode felt like being in the girls’ Brooklyn brownstone for a night in.
The ladies focused on the nuances of the show that pushed their on-screen careers into the stratosphere. Queen Latifah detailed that it wasn’t until her friend and fellow rapper, Will Smith landed “The Fresh Prince” in 1990 that she realized that she could do TV too.
Brick by brick, the show was built. Latifah linked with (then) rising star showrunner and the show’s creator, Yvette Lee Bowser. Bowser (then Yvette Denise Lee) developed the show out of her experience as a TV writer and her desire to portray young Black professionals in a fresh, non-stereotypical way. Bowser had written on shows like “A Different World” before pitching “Living Single,” a sitcom based on the lives of her friends. She became the first Black woman to create and run her own primetime television series with “Living Single.”
From there, they managed to get comedian Kim Coles and the series began life under the working title “My Girls” and was developed at Fox after Queen Latifah and Coles landed development deals with the network. And the legend Kim Fields joined the crew. Alexander joked that she was found on the street like an “urchin.”
Queen Latifah disagreed, “You don’t give yourself the proper credit. First of all…your influence is strong, girl.” She then shared that each of her cast members taught her everything she knows about acting and TV.
Before landing this iconic role, Latifah made a name for herself in music as a rapper and a mogul. She had launched her multimedia production company, Flavor Unit, and her co-stars considered her to be a businesswoman who taught them so much about being a boss. (And yes, Khadijah’s magazine, Flava, was named after her real company.)
Before they changed the show’s name from “My Girls” to “Living Single,” Queen Latifah had “made a whole theme song and everything!”
Coles then mentioned going to the head of the studio to complain about the name of the show. “Nobody talks like that!” They all laughed. Coles then thanked Latifah for instilling the value of speaking up for yourself into her at the time.
Latifah’s boss-ness showed itself on set because she wasn’t just going to act on the show, she wanted to contribute using her first love: music. “Obviously I come from music, and this is my show, in my mind. I’m like, ‘I gotta do this theme song.’ These theme songs are, like, what resonate in your minds,” Queen Latifah said.
She continued, “I did a whole theme song for the original name of the show, “My Girls,” which was totally different, completely different but very soulful, just vibe-y, and I like to sing and rap and mix it all together.”
When the show was retitled to “Living Single,” Latifah said she “took it back to the lab” and reworked the music with producer Def Jef, who “built the beat on the machine” while she refined the rhyme and hook. That studio rework produced the now-familiar mix of hip hop and jazz that opens the show: “We are living (Ooh) / Single (Hey)”. The theme song has become one of the most recognizable and iconic theme songs of a sitcom to date.
All hail the Queen, indeed.
