NEED TO KNOW
Queen Latifah is opening up about how the Living Single theme song could have been much different.
PEOPLE can exclusively premiere a clip from the Wednesday, Nov. 12 episode of the ReLiving Single podcast, where the actress and musician reveals why she ended up creating two theme songs.
In the clip, Queen Latifah, 55, reveals to co-hosts and former costars Erika Alexander and Kim Coles why the original theme song to the sitcom was “completely different” than the one fans know, “We Are Living Single.”
ReLiving Single Podcast/YouTube; Deborah Feingold/Fox Television/Courtesy Everett Collection
“Obviously I come from music, and this is my show, in my mind. I’m like, ‘I gotta do this theme song.’ These theme songs are, like, what resonate in your minds,” she says in the clip.
Queen Latifah continues: “I did a whole theme song for the original name of the show, My Girls, which was totally different, completely different but very soulful, just vibe-y, and I like to sing and rap and mix it all together.”
She then recalled how the name of the show was then changed to Living Single, which she claims was “another reason I was arguing in that office.”
Queen Latifah then had to “take it back to the lab.”
“I was just thinking about Living Single. I’m thinking about what we’re doing. What is it like, these four girls doing their thing?” she recalls.
Queen Latifah then recalls how rapper and producer Def Jef helped her “flesh this idea out.”
Courtesy of Raul Ramo for Hartbeat’s ReLiving Single Podcast
“So he did the beat on the machine for me and then I wrote the rhyme and chopped up ‘Check, check, check out,'” she says of the lyrics.
Queen Latifah then recalls how she crafted the chorus to the song and how it spoke to her “sensitive” side.
In her head she heard the lyrics, “We are living (Ooh) /Single (Hey),” but it was “longer.”
Queen Latifah then heard, “Yes, we’re living the single life, yeah.” At the same time, she heard the “rhyme to it.”
Hartbeat
“So, it was a mixture of his hip-hop beat with these beautiful notes and a little bit of jazz at the end that was perfect,” added Queen Latifah.
The iconic ’90s show Living Single ran on Fox from 1993 to 1998 and redefined comedy, friendship, dating and the Black experience for a generation.
In the Fox series, Alexander, 55, starred as public defender Maxine; Coles, 63, was aspiring actress Synclaire; and Queen Latifah played Synclaire’s magazine publisher cousin Khadijah.
New episodes of ReLiving Single air weekly on Wednesdays and can be found on Spotify, YouTube and everywhere you get podcasts.
