BET has set a premiere date of Friday, November 27 at 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT for You Can Go Home Again, a documentary following Queen Latifah’s journey to build affordable housing in her hometown of Newark, New Jersey. The film is co-produced by Flavor Unit Entertainment and P&G Studios, directed by Muta’Ali, and executive produced by Shakim Compere and Loretha Jones.
The documentary traces Queen Latifah’s early years in Newark alongside her yearslong effort to bring RISE Living, a mixed-use affordable housing complex, to the neighborhood where she grew up. The name stands for “Rita Is Still Everywhere,” a tribute to her late mother. Born to a police officer father and a schoolteacher mother, Latifah broke through with her 1989 debut album All Hail the Queen and became one of hip-hop’s defining voices with “U.N.I.T.Y.,” her Grammy-winning anthem against sexism and violence toward women. She went on to star in Living Single, earn an Oscar nomination for Chicago, and win a Golden Globe and SAG Award for Life Support. In 2023, she became the first female rapper to receive the Kennedy Center Honors, and this month she’ll be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
The film continues Queen Latifah’s longtime creative partnership with P&G, built around the Queen Collective, which she co-founded with P&G and Flavor Unit Entertainment in 2018 to support multicultural directors through mentorship and creative development. For this project specifically, P&G’s Febreze brand provided new HVAC systems for the housing units, aimed at improving air quality and overall living conditions for residents.
“You Can Go Home Again is very personal to me,” Queen Latifah said. “It’s about my community and the people and places that make us who we are.” BET president Louis Carr called her embodiment of “community, culture and connection” central to the network’s mission, while P&G Studios head Anna Saalfeld framed the project as an opportunity for a Queen Collective director to gain hands-on experience creating branded content tied to real community impact.
The premiere also deepens Queen Latifah’s relationship with BET, which honored her with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2021 BET Awards and where she now serves on the network’s first-ever Board of Advisors.
Separately, a feature biopic about Queen Latifah is in active development, produced by her own Flavor Unit Entertainment alongside Will Smith’s Westbrook Studios and Jesse Collins Entertainment, with independent financing from HarbourView Equity Partners. An open casting call is underway, and because the film spans nearly four decades of her life, Latifah has said it may take three different actresses to capture its different stages. The script is still being written, with no casting decisions finalized.
With both a deeply personal documentary and a sweeping biopic now moving forward simultaneously, Queen Latifah’s story is being told this year from two very different angles: one rooted in the community she never left, the other tracing the full arc of how she became one of hip-hop’s most enduring figures.