Author: Queen Latifah
Published: 2000
“I am not a psychologist or a sociologist,” Queen Latifah points out. “I don’t have any degrees, and I’m not an expert on life. What I am is a young black woman from the inner city who is making it, despite the odds, despite the obstacles I’ve had to face in the lifetimes that have come my way.” In Ladies First, she talks about the importance of women making the move to be strong and self-reliant, using her own rise to stardom as a rapper and actress as an example. The drive and ambition have been with her since childhood: when she was very young and boys would ridicule her for wanting to play basketball with them, she retorted, “I’m not a tomboy–I’m just an athlete.” Later, as a teenager, she would sneak out at night and go with friends to New York City to explore the emerging hip-hop scene, eventually cutting her first single in 1987. She talks about the choices she’s made about drugs and sex and how she’s learned as much from her mistakes as from her successes. And she addresses, glancingly, the rumors about her sexuality that have dogged her for years, and why she’d rather just ignore them: “I want people to see me as someone who is proud and comfortable with who I am…. Be secure in yourself. You don’t need me–or any other public person, for that matter–to validate you.” That basic principle, applied to all aspects of life, is the core of Ladies First.
