This Rapper Has Taken Some Pretty Hard Knocks

Sat., March 14, 1998

Compiled By Staff Writer Rick Bo

Six years after Queen Latifah’s policeman brother died in a motorcycle accident, she’s still feeling the loss - literally.

“The strange thing is when my brother died, I lost my grip, the power in my arms. I couldn’t make a fist,” the rapper-cum-actress tells US magazine. “To this day, it’s not the same.”

But the tragedy fueled her career. He had been the “man of the house,” and she “was always the one getting in trouble.” She’s since starred in the sitcom “Living Single” and made movies, including the new “Sphere” with Sharon Stone and Dustin Hoffman.

Now she plans to return to her rap roots.

“All these other rappers and artists have had a chance to shine because I haven’t had a record out. And I am the Queen,” she proclaims. “It’s time to come back and let them know I’m here.”

Loose talk

Former MTV personality Daisy Fuentes, on becoming the “America’s Funniest Home Videos” co-host (in TV Guide): “It’s not like I’m a television show host who really wants to be an actress. This is what I like doing. I’m not ambitious.”

Too bad Grammy didn’t get him anything

Taylor Hanson turns 15 today.

B-O-U-Q-U-E-T, tell me what you mean to me

Aretha Franklin is still drawing raves for her Grammy awards show performance, where she belted out a newfangled version of “Respect” and pinch-hit for the ailing Luciano Pavarotti on an operatic aria. “The reaction has just been overwhelming,” she told USA Today. “I’ve gotten the most beautiful, exotic floral arrangements. Eddie Murphy sent me several dozen pink roses. The house is lined with big, beautiful arrangements from one end to the other. I just can’t stand it.”

He didn’t name any of those boys, or they’d sue

Johnny Cash, whose latest work has drifted well out of the Nashville mainstream, celebrated his best country album Grammy for “Unchained” with a full-page ad in Billboard magazine. It shows an enraged Cash making an obscene gesture, with the caption: “American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support.”

Sounds like he’s got a real altitude problem

Oasis singer Liam Gallagher, who last week was charged with headbutting a tourist taking photographs outside the band’s Brisbane hotel, has been banned from Cathay Pacific Airways for allegedly threatening to stab a pilot during the preceding flight from Hong Kong to Australia.

It takes the Village People to raise their hackles

Church leaders in Kingston, Jamaica - where homosexual acts are illegal - are opposing a planned concert by ‘70s icons the Village People because of their popularity among gays. Said Jamaica Council of Churches leader Stanley Clarke: “To promote a music festival of that nature which is going to highlight a behavior repugnant to the majority of people in this country is disrespectful.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino

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