Queen Latifah Tests Her Music Knowledge on Track Star — and the Playlist Gets Personal

Queen Latifah’s Track Star Playlist Is Basically a Music-History Flex

A brand sparkling new episode of Track Star* embraces the living pioneer and legend, Queen Latifah, and naturally the playlist refuses to stay in one lane. What starts with foundational hip-hop quickly swerves through Amy Winehouse, Dolly Parton, Chaka Khan, gospel royalty and Native Tongues history before circling back to one of Latifah’s own records.

That range is exactly why this episode works. Latifah has spent decades moving between rap, soul, jazz, acting, producing and television without ever sounding like she wandered into the wrong room. Put headphones on her and start throwing songs from different eras and genres into the mix, and suddenly Track Star* becomes less trivia challenge and more accidental tour through the records that built a musical omnivore.

From “Rapper’s Delight” to Dolly Parton Without Blinking

The episode opens with The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”, the kind of song that barely needs an introduction when your guest helped carry hip-hop into its next era. But Track Star* does not leave Latifah safely inside rap history. Amy Winehouse’s “Me & Mr Jones” follows, then Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” pushing the game into completely different corners of the record shelf.

Then comes Chaka Khan’s “I Know You, I Live You,” another reminder that Latifah’s ear has never been boxed into whichever genre label happened to be attached to her latest project. The playlist is doing what the best episodes of this format do: using recognition as the hook, but letting taste and memory tell the bigger story.

“Buddy” Turns the Quiz Into Queen Latifah’s Own History

The most delicious needle drop might be De La Soul’s “Buddy (Native Tongue Decision)”, because now the game is testing Latifah with a record she actually helped make. The 1989 remix pulled together De La Soul with Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest, Monie Love and Queen Latifah — one of those Native Tongues posse cuts where the family tree practically introduces itself.

For Latifah, that means Track Star* briefly stops being a quiz about somebody else’s catalog. It becomes a flashback to the community she came up inside, when Native Tongues was less a neat retrospective label and more a living network of artists bouncing ideas, verses and personality off one another.

The Clark Sisters’ “Name It Claim It” adds gospel to the pile before the episode lands where it probably had to land eventually: Queen Latifah herself.

And Then Track Star* Hands Latifah Her Own Record

The closer is “Just Another Day…”, from Latifah’s 1993 album Black Reign. Coming after everything else in the playlist, it feels less like a gotcha and more like the punchline: after moving through several generations and styles of music, the final test is whether the Queen recognizes the Queen.

That is also what makes this one more fun than a straight “how many songs can she name?” episode. The seven-track run quietly sketches the breadth of Latifah’s musical world — early rap, smoky soul, country songwriting, funk, gospel, Native Tongues and her own New Jersey-rooted hip-hop. Not bad for one set of headphones.

Track List:
“Rapper’s Delight” — The Sugarhill Gang
“Me & Mr Jones” — Amy Winehouse
“Jolene” — Dolly Parton
“I Know You, I Live You” — Chaka Khan
“Buddy (Native Tongue Decision)” — De La Soul
“Name It Claim It” — The Clark Sisters
“Just Another Day…” — Queen Latifah

Queen Latifah Tests Her Music Knowledge on Track Star*

Watch Queen Latifah take on the seven-song Track Star* challenge, from Sugarhill Gang and Dolly Parton to De La Soul and her own “Just Another Day…”

Sources: Track Star*; De La Soul; Apple Music. Track list via the supplied Track Star* episode.