“I was born here, St. Michael’s Hospital, so this is definitely my home,” said Latifah, 52, who spent some of her early years in neighboring East Orange and Irvington. But getting back to Newark, she added, “This is where Sarah Vaughn is from, so I’m proud to be from here.”
, the company headed by Alberto and Yacinda Goncalves and Ricardo Sosa that is partnering with Latifah’s development company, Blue Sugar, on the project. Blue Sugar’s CEO is her longtime friend and fellow Newarker Tammy Hammond. On Tuesday, Latifah credited her longtime partner and Flavor Unit Entertainment cofounder Shakim as “the power behind me, the strength in my spine,” and the person who shared her vision and inspired her to make it a reality.
Oliver, a Newarker who knows Latifah’s family and spoke at Tuesday’s event, referred to the international music, film and television star by her birth name, Dana Owens, daughter of a school teacher and Newark police officer, Rita and Lancelot Owens. RISE is an acronym for Rita Is Still Everywhere, honoring Latifah’s late mother, in the same way the star named a college scholarship after her late bother, Lancelot H. Owens, who died in a motorcycle accident 30 years ago.
Latifah said she was among those “blessed to have god have his way over our lives and to put the right people in our paths and to allow us to be able to know that we can dream, and not only dream, but to bring those dreams to fruition.”
Give her credit for trying in such a bad town.
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