Latifah’s ‘Valentine’: ‘90s Jazz Swing

What was rap star Queen Latifah doing singing a jazzy version of the Rodgers-Hart classic “My Funny Valentine” on this week’s American Music Awards telecast? Is she planning to record the Frank Sinatra songbook?

“I don’t have any plans (to do others),” Latifah said during a break in the taping of the Fox sitcom “Living Single,” in which she co-stars. “It would have to come organically. I couldn’t plan it because it wouldn’t come across like it should.”

Looking for something special to perform on the telecast, which she co-hosted, Latifah said she turned to the song that she first heard on television as a child.

“I couldn’t completely make it traditional, so we jazzed it up with rap and reggae and it became the new jazz swing for the ‘90s,” she said, crediting Gordon Chambers for the arrangement.

Latifah points to the jazzy “Winki’s Theme” from her latest album, 1994’s “Black Reign,” as a sign of her desire to experiment musically.

“I was singing before I started to rap,” she added. “It’s important to be able to go where I want to go without being put in a box.”