Even though she'd been a household name in the music and film world for nearly 15 years, by 2002 {$Queen Latifah} still didn't have a compilation of her own. Then again, since she'd spent so much time in the world of television and film, {$Latifah} had only released one album since 1993's {^Black Reign}. Finally {@Motown} gave her the career treatment with {^She's a Queen: A Collection of Hits}, a brief collection that has most of her best performances but can't escape its perfunctory air -- there are no liner notes, only one fuzzy picture, and an overall lack of design quality. {@Motown} did make a small gesture, though, by licensing three tracks from her first two albums (originally on {@Tommy Boy}), including two of her most powerful performances: {&"Ladies First"} and {&"Latifah's Had It up 2 Here."} The compilation skips over the delightful {$De la Soul} feature {&"Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children,"} but does provide the best of her strong material from the early '90s like {&"U.N.I.T.Y."} and {&"Just Another Day...,"} plus {&"Paper,"} her intriguing 1998 redo of {&"I Heard It Through the Grapevine,"} produced by {$Pras}. The new tracks, however, won't join the {$Queen Latifah} pantheon like the rest already have; {&"Go Head"} finds her aping {$Missy Elliott} in both sound and delivery, and there isn't much to recommend the others, either. With just a little more effort, {@Motown} could've made this {$Queen Latifah} collection a brilliant summation of her career; just as it had for almost 40 years, the label seemed more interested in reaching the charts than giving proper due to the artists who've already had success. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide