QUEEN LATIFAH- Chelsea Studios

Written by Backstage Bruce  

Me and The Queen

    I adore Queen Latifah, Dana's my girl. The first time I ever remember hearing her, or of her, was when Troop and Levert featured her, in their song, on the soundtrack of the movie 'New Jack City'. About a year later I got my hands on a mixed Tommy Boy tape from the New Music Seminar in 1992. Around this time she was in the Naughty By Nature music video 'Hip-Hop Hooray' and in the movie 'Set It Off'. 

    When she released her CD 'Black Reign' I ran right out and picked up my copy from The Wiz on 6th Ave. & West 32nd Str, it's closed now, as is most record stores in N.Y.C. Apparently someone finally beat him. The CD contains the hits 'U.N.I.T.Y' and 'Just Another Day Around The Way', plus my personal fave 'Coochie Bang'. 

    It was announced that Queen Latifah was going to be getting her own daytime talk show so I had to go see that. One day I just walked on over to the television studio and got in the standby line hoping I would possibly get in. While I'm standing there, I noticed a few people, that worked for the show, looking at me. They had their credentials hanging around their necks. They would talk amongst themselves and then look back over at me, something definitely seemed up. 

    A few of them approached me, one spoke for the group. He introduced himself and informed me that the topic of that days show was Hip-Hop. And that they were picking one person from the studio audience to do a Hip-Hop makeover on and asked me if I wanted to play along. I was the only white boy with blue eyes, out of the 200 people, and I do like fun so I agree to it. 

    They let us all in the studio and pulled me aside to give me the show's breakdown. They wanted a total transformation so I was instructed to play it up extra nerdy: button my shirt all the way up, sit upright, real stiff, and make it appear that I have a huge overbite. Got it! This was going to be a hoot. 

    They place me in a seat. I am positioned perfectly for when the show starts. Queen Latifah comes out, audience applause, she walks over to her mark and delivers her monologue. I am sitting there, displayed prominently, right over her left shoulder, you can't miss me with those teeth showing. She whips the crowd into a frenzy when she announces the topic of the show and the surprise musical guest: Slick Rick & Fat Joe!

My ticket stub from that day

    The audience start to calm down, that is when Queen Latifah said "Before we can get started, someone over here needs work." She walked over to me and told me to stand up, I do and the crowd just laughs hysterically, I looked so out of place. She tells me she is going to send me backstage and away I go. I walked across the stage real stiffly playing it up.

    I walked through a door and a young lady was there to meet me. She was a producer's assistant. She took me by the hand and lead me into the dressing room for the actual makeover. She left me off with the wardrobe person who was sitting there reading her magazine. 

    There were so many new clothes in this dressing room: pants, shirts, shoes, hats, etc... I felt like a kid in a candy store. I asked the wardrobe person "How much of this stuff can I leave with?" She just turned the page. I was thinking "I'm not kidding, don't just sit there, get me a shopping bag." 

     I do the makeover myself. I tried on a few different pairs of pants and I went with the Tommy Hilfiger Carpenter Pants. They were the latest in fashion, so '99, very baggy, with a loop to hang a hammer (as if) plus all sorts of little pockets for carpenter tools. (Just for show, those pockets will never hold a tool in their lives.) I decided to match that up with a Tommy Jeans shirt. 

    Now it was time for the shoes. I went with the classic, the original, The Adidas. The white-leather Adidas with the three black stripes. The same ones that the Kings from Queens, RUN-DMC made famous. They were a little tight but I felt like Cinderella at the ball. I crammed my size 13 feet into those sneakers and I was set. I topped off the ensemble with Kangol hat, Black & Silver, Raiders colors. I'm looking in the mirror feeling good when I ask the wardrobe person if I get to keep the clothes. Without even looking up from her magazine, she finally says a word to me, "No". 

    The producer's assistant comes back to get me. Again she takes me by the hand, she tells me I looked great and started to lead me off to the green room to meet the musical guest. She asked me if I had any questions and I said "Yes, do I get to keep these clothes?" She too told me no. She dropped me off in the green room where I met Slick Rick and Fat Joe. They were both very nice. The three of us rehearsed Slick Rick's biggest hit song 'La Di Da De'. That is what all of us were going to perform on stage later. This was just getting better by the minute. 

The autograph is upside down, but it reads "Peace, Queen Latifah."

    During the dramatic segment, the rappers were on one side of a panel and on the other side were concerned parents and community members. They all debated and argued about violence in music and discussed degrading language used, it got really heated. It was a perfect dramatic segment. 

    It was now time to lighten the show up a bit by bringing me out. Queen Latifah says "You remember what Bruce looked like before" That is when they flashed the before picture, everyone laughed again. "Well this is what he looks like now." she continued. I came out of the same door I went in. I was told to really play up my walk, have some swagger even. I get on stage, Queen Latifah says "You need jewels, Joe help him out." Fat Joe took off the platinum cross, that he had been wearing, and placed it around my neck. 

    She told me I looked good and asked me how I felt. And here we go, a question was asked. The door was open, I said "I feel good and all, but..." and I did it, right on national television, I asked her "do I get to keep these clothes?" And she was like "Yeah, Bruce you can keep the clothes." (Told you Dana's my girl, she was looking out.)  She then said "Bruce, is this true, someone told me you got skills? Is there truth to that rumor?" 

    And the music started playing. She joined me, Rick and Joe on stage. There we were, the four of us singing along to "'La Di Da De, we like to party" and we do. I was having the time of my life, a New York minute, two hours before I didn't even know if I was getting in and now here I am dancing on national television. I don't know who or how it started but all the sudden all 200 people, in the audience, started chanting "Go, Bruce, Go Bruce" and boy did I, I actually went. 

    The show comes to an end, I duck backstage real quickly to get the original clothes I wore there. I see Queen Latifah and tell her that I had a great time and ask for a quick photo. She was thrilled too. I brought my copy of 'Black Reign' for her to sign, which she did. This was such a fun, unexpected day, but living in NYC this was just another day around the way.