All Hail the Queen [Collectors' Choice]

1	Dance for Me 3:45
2	Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children 4:28
3	Come into My House 4:17
4	Latifah's Law 3:52
5	Wrath of My Madness 4:16
6	The Pros 5:46
7	Ladies First / Monie Love 3:57
8	A King and Queen Creation / The 45 King 3:38
9	Queen of Royal Badness 3:28
10	Evil That Men Do 4:06
11	Princess of the Posse 3:53
12	Inside Out 4:11

Barnes & Noble

She was not the first woman to rap on wax (that title goes to MC Lyte and/or a variety of women named Roxanne), but the moment this 1989 debut dropped, Queen Latifah became the most commanding and authoritative woman in hip-hop. Latifah rapped with stentorian diction, giving hip-hop positivity a decidedly feminine slant. In one tune she raps: "A sucker/Weak and soft/Riding my bra strap/Trying to get off." In addition, her repertoire covered a wide range of styles, including club music. Many male rappers were leery of moves toward dance music, but Latifah created assertive hip-hop/house anthems with "Come into My House," and "Dance for Me." An impressive array of artists -- De La Soul, KRS-One, and Monie Love -- appear in cameos but never upstage Latifah's one-woman show. Martin Johnson

All Music Guide

As strong a buzz as Queen Latifah created with her debut single of 1988, "Wrath of My Madness" and its reggae-influenced B-side, "Princess of the Posse," one would have expected the North Jersey rapper/actress' first album, All Hail the Queen, to be much stronger. Though not a bad album by any means, it doesn't live up to Latifah's enormous potential. The CD's strongest material includes "Evil That Men Do," a hard-hitting duet with KRS-One addressing black-on-black crime and other social ills; the infectious hip-house number "Come into My House"; the rap-reggae duet with Stetsasonic's Daddy O "The Pros"; and the aforementioned songs. Unfortunately, boasting numbers like "A King and Queen Creation" and "Queen of Royal Badness" aren't terribly memorable. Especially disappointing is "Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children," a duet with De La Soul that, surprisingly, is both musically and lyrically generic. To be sure, Latifah's rapping skills are top-notch -- which is why All Hail the Queen should have been consistently excellent instead of merely good. [A Collectors' Choice edition was released in 2002 with the three bonus remixes removed.] Alex Henderson