Queen Latifah in Soho: from the archive, London, 2011
The Box club, Soho, London · 2026
Queen Latifah is in the news this weekend. She is one of the 2026 inductees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, honoured with the Early Influence Award, and the induction ceremony takes place tonight, Saturday 14 November 2026, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles (AP; Rock & Roll Hall of Fame). The ceremony will be shown on ABC and Disney+ in December.The picture here comes from a summer night in London fifteen years earlier.
The Box club, Soho, 14 July 2011
On the night of 14 July 2011, Queen Latifah walked through Soho on her way to the Box club. The camera clock puts the frame at 1.19am, in the first minutes of 15 July.
She is dressed for a night out in sharp monochrome: a black blazer over a crisp white shirt with the cuffs turned back, black trousers and open toe heels. Layered gold chains sit at her neck, large dark sunglasses stay on despite the hour, and she carries a black satin clutch. Her hair is pulled back into a long ponytail. A man in a dark suit walks a pace ahead of her, and behind them the Soho street is lit by neon and shop signs.
It was a busy night outside the club. Just under an hour later, singer Alexandra Burke arrived on the same street in a strapless magenta lace dress with a gold clutch, smiling for the cameras. That frame is included here as a second picture from the same night.
The Early Influence Award goes to artists whose music and performance style influenced and inspired rock and roll and the wider culture. These pictures show her away from the stage, on an ordinary July night in London.
The pictures
Faces of private individuals and two shop signs have been blurred. Two frames from the night are here. Picture editors can license the set through BACKGRID.
Credit: Charlie Pycraft / BACKGRID. Licensing: Backgrid UK Sales, backgrid_uksales@shutterstock.com