Queen Latifah is the first female rapper to be named a Kennedy Center honoree

Queen Latifah has been named one of this year’s Kennedy Center honorees, making her the first female rapper to receive the prestigious annual award for lifetime achievement in the performing arts.

The ceremony, which will take place on December 3 and be hosted by Gloria Estefan, will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, the Washington Post reports.

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“It will allow us a moment to be part of the fabric of America, which is really what we are,” Latifah told the New York Times of the ceremony, which is usually attended by the President. “It will be one night where the people who are in the highest offices in the most powerful nation in the world will honor hip-hop music and one of its daughters.”

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As the paper notes, Latifah is only the second hip-hop artist ever to be honored by the Kennedy Center, after LL Cool J in 2017.

“It’s a pretty powerful night in America for American art,” she told the Washington Post. “To be part of that is very profound.”

Billy Crystal, Dionne Warwick, and Bee Gees member Barry Gibb are also among the iconic performers who will be saluted at the 46th Kennedy Center Honors.

“I think it’s kind of fun to be celebrating hip-hop at the same time we’re celebrating a guy who made disco and pop music so ubiquitous,” Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter told the Post, referring to Gibb.

“Thank God for hip-hop,” Latifah said. “It’s hip-hop music that opened the door for me to do everything I’ve done. I’m really grateful for this art form that we developed that allowed us to be able to move and shake around this entire globe.”

While the rapper and star of CBS’s The Equalizer has never publicly confirmed her sexuality, speculation has swirled for decades. In 2021, however, she acknowledged her longtime partner Eboni Nichols publicly for the first time, thanking her and their son Rebel in her acceptance speech for the BET Lifetime Achievement Award. She ended the speech by wishing viewers a “Happy Pride!”

Warwick has also been a longtime LGBTQ+ ally.

As the Post notes, her 1985 hit “That’s What Friends Are For” with Gladys Knight, Elton John, and Stevie Wonder was the first recording dedicated to AIDS awareness. In 2020, she charmed queer fans when she tweeted that she was learning about all the different LGBTQ+ flags as well as pronouns.

“Let’s all work together to be more knowledgeable and inclusive,” she wrote.