[Steeltrap]

Originally posted by CrimsonTide4
(10/17/03, 3 p.m. ET) -- Actor and rapper Queen Latifah is a busy woman these days. The Grammy Award-winning star is presently in Los Angeles filming her role as a cabbie opposite Jimmy Fallon in Taxi. Latifah has seven films slated to hit theaters within the next year including: Scary Movie 3, Barbershop 2, Taxi, Beauty Parlor, Bad Girls with Jada Pinkett Smith, My Wife Is A Gangsta, and Cookout, a film the star is producing.


Recently Latifah shared some of the details of her forthcoming rap album with New York's Daily News. One of the more touching songs is "The World," which is semi-autobiographical. Latifah said, "The first verse is autobiographical, talking about how I was molested as a child. I didn't know how to tell my parents and it really messed with me emotionally and in terms of my ideas of sexuality. I had parents who explained these things to me, but it happens to you at 5 years old, you can't seem to get it out of your mouth, like, 'Hey, this guy did this me.' You know?"


In addition to the rap album, Queen Latifah will be releasing an album of standards recorded with pop producer Arif Mardin. The album will be followed by a fall tour and a DVD documenting the tour.


The multi-talented Latifah is also developing a television series, Mali Anderson, with CBS about a female private detective in Harlem who is forced to adopt a child. I have read the books that they are basing this show and she was not forced to adopt her nephew. His parents died and Mali helps raise him along with her dad.


The talented star will take a break from all of her commitments to host the inaugural Vibe magazine Vibe Awards on November 21.

If Queen does a jazz/standards CD, I'll buy it. She's the type of singer who could make it back in the day when singing mattered -- yes, I'm referencing Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.