A Musical Journey

She tiptoes around the lazy beat, treading softly, as if traversing hot coals, her voice smoldering like a campfire.

"You ain't gettin' off the hook this time, baby," Queen Latifah purrs, coming with more sass than your kid sister. "I want a little sugar in my bowl."

And then she delivers on her own demands, covering the Nina Simone standard in enough steam to fog up an acre of glass.

It's a long way from "Ladies First," the feminist hip-hop battle cry that was Latifah's first hit, though the message remains the same: What this woman wants, she tends to get.

And what Latifah is after these days is to play the role of a modern day Billie Holiday, a ballsy drama mama whose latest disc, "Trav'lin' Light," recasts her as a brassy jazz singer.

"It's a different patience that I had to learn with this kind of music and performing in front of the audiences that come out, because with hip-hop, you're up on your feet the whole time, it's a much more hyper energy," Latifah says. "But this is nice, that I'm actually around long enough to grow and change and be able to perform in a front of a different audience. A lot of the people who come out have been fans of my music from 20 years ago, and they've kind of grown up with me. We all are getting to enjoy a different flavor at our ages, and it's a lot of fun."

Of course, Latifah has become better known in recent years for her scene-stealing acting roles in hits such as "Chicago" and "Hairspray," and this manifests itself in her music.

What makes "Trav'lin' Light" work is that Latifah continually inhabits different characters for each song, from a wary lover eyeing her man with suspicion ("How Long") to an impulsive firebrand who refuses to look past tomorrow ("I'm Gonna Live Till I Die").

"It's really all about just diving into it, being there, being where the song is, being in those lyrics and in that place," Latifah explains. "When I sing 'Live Until I Die,' I feel that song. I feel like, 'Yeah! I want to live, live, live until I die.' That's where my mind is, and that's what I want to convey to the audience. I don't really have to go far to get it, I just have to hear what I'm saying. It's really just about getting into the music and taking people there with you.

In reality, none of this is all that great of a departure from the kind of multi-culti hip-hop Latifah first became known for beginning in the late '80s.

Her cocksure 1989 debut, "All Hail the Queen," was one of the more musical efforts of its kind at the time, alive with reggae and salsa flourishes as well as a melodic savvy that harkened back to Latifah's childhood dabblings in musical theater.

"It was always there," Latifah says of her broad musical background. "I sang before I rapped, and so when I started rapping, I couldn't imagine not including melody and harmony in the hip-hop. I didn't want to just be the typical, four bars, loop, beats-and-rhymes type of person. I heard so many other things when I heard a beat, that just rhyming to it wasn't enough for me. I needed to put a singing chorus to it, a bridge maybe, and infuse reggae or jazz into it. From then to now, it's still my opportunity to enjoy music in all its forms. People who come to these shows definitely take a journey."

Latifah's catalog has become increasingly diffuse in recent years, focusing more on steely torch songs than rhymes, though anything goes at her shows.

"Depending on what kind of crowd we have, we can pretty much perform any of my songs," Latifah says. "We've performed a sort of unplugged version of 'U.N.I.T.Y.' to big band jazz records to blues records to soul and folk. To come to one of my shows is definitely to be open."

Opening up, baring her voice and her self, that's what Latifah seems most intent on doing these days.

She's painted a fuller portrait of herself, broadened her palate a bit, and now her true colors have come into focus.

"I've performed at places, like say a casino, and then we go out and eat afterwards in the casino and you run into people, and they're like, 'I had no idea you could sing like that,' " Latifah chuckles. "I'm singing a lot of songs, and we're having fun in that vein as well. I just try and keep it interesting."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0476.