No. 43: Queen Latifah

It's funny now, seeing Dana Owens on Cover Girl billboards and getting Academy Award nominations and shit. The young generation has no clue what life was like 20 years ago, when hip-hop music was entering its absolute peak stretch and Queen Latifah was an icon of an entirely different sort.

There were a number of different female emcees right on the edge of making this top-50 list but missed for various reasons. You had the rapid-fire verses of Monie Love (too one-dimensional), the vicious lyricism of The Lady Of Rage (not enough product), the cocksure flow of Eve (too commercially watered-down) and the precocious all-around talent who burned out too quickly in Lauryn Hill (ummm...burned out too quickly).

(Speaking of burning out, another R&B chick might've trumped them all had she stuck around just a little longer. I still say Left Eye was as tight on the mic as any woman who ever lived. Sadly, she was left — barely — on the cutting room floor.)

Who you callin' a bitch?

None of the ladies mentioned above would've been able to shine nearly as brightly had Latifah not cracked the shit out of the glass ceiling for them. Following MC Lyte out of the gate, the 19-year-old made her presence felt immediately with All Hail The Queen in 1989, then took it to another level in the early '90s with the smash "U.N.I.T.Y." off her third solo LP, Black Reign.

In 1995, she dropped another cut for the classic New Jersey Drive soundtrack ("Jersey") that remains one of my personal favorites. Latifah was one of the few emcees capable of ripping your head off on one track and keeping it completely smooth and laid-back on the next. It's a gift that not too many folks this side of Kane and LL were blessed with.

Eventually, she blossomed into a TV and movie star, going from little-ass cameos in House Party 2 and Juice to big-time roles in flicks like Chicago (which earned her a shot at an Oscar). Owens has also dabbled in singing in recent years, but her roots will always be in hip hop, where she proved long ago on cuts like "Roll With Tha Flava" that she's capable of ripping a mic with the best of them.