GRAMMY® winning artist, Queen Latifah has
signed on to star as Mali Anderson in new CBS drama based on the Harlem super-sleuth
mystery novels written by Grace F. Edwards.
Latifah’s character is a street and book
smart graduate student who works towards her PHD in Social Work, while solving
neighborhood murders and crimes involving close friends and family. Born Dana
Owens, she adapted the name Latifah, which in Arabic means “delicate and
sensitive.”
Latifah is also executive producing the project
with Lawrence Bender and Kevin Brown. Queen Latifah’s production company Flavor
Unit and Bender and Brown’s Bender-Brown Prods. are producing.
"We look at this as an opportunity to do
an extraordinary television series with an extraordinary, unique talent in Queen
Latifah, who has such broad appeal because of her acting and her music,"
Brown told the Hollywood Reporter.
Latifah gained the distinction of being the first
female solo rap artist to achieve gold record status. Boasting a strong female
consciousness that spread like wildfire, Latifah’s material oftentimes addressed
political and feminist issues.
In addition to Queen Latifah’s new role
on CBS, her greatest hits collection She’s A Queen, will be released
on October 29.