Okay. The article is called the talented Mr. Kravitz from Esquire magazine as he prepares to drop his first album in more than five years with a massive tour to follow, the rock and style icon talks candidly about family, faith, sex, love, and legacy. By Madison Vain
Lenny Kravitz does not blend in. We're sitting in Bemelman's, the iconic piano bar at the Upper east side's historic Carlisle Hotel. Here, things are done properly, been since 1947. Waiters wear white coats. Served exclusively in etched crystal glasses arrive on silver trays. Fancy little bowls full of fancy little bar snacks, uh, adorn the tables. Murals by Ludwig Bellmans. The Madeline children's book fame decorate the walls, and some of the country's most celebrated jazz pianists still play the black and whites nightly. It is a place completely synonymous with old school New York City glamour. Also maybe the last. Last place you'd expect to spot a certified rock God during daylight hours. This is where Kravitz wanted to meet. So here we are. It's 03:00 p.m. On a very rainy Yom Kippur. The remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia are battering Manhattan outside, and the sparser than usual crowd is almost entirely drinking martinis. Who is staying at his daughter's Brooklyn apartment while she's holed up in his Paris home, like he came in straight from 1975, brown leather jacket, turtleneck, flared trousers. Signature locks are pulled half back and gold rings wrap around a few of his fingers. He orders a hot green tea. Kravitz is right at home at the Carlisle. This is where his mom, Roxy Roker, then an assistant at NBC and an aspiring actress, asks Bobby Short, the fable cabaret who headlined here for decades,
She should accept the marriage proposal of a news producer who worked in her building named Cy. Kravitz replied short. I don't see anyone else asking.
Lenny's classmates were with sitters on Saturday nights, short visited him and his parents at their table between sets. He met Andy Warhol here many years later, at a party for Bret Easton Illus. He even hosted his dad's final birthday party here in the early two thousand s.
place is all over my life, he says plainly. Has Kravitz ever blended in? The only son of Roxy and Psy, he has equal parts his mother, a black woman of bahamian descent, and his white jewish father, whose family came to America from Kiev before Psy was born.
up biracial in the Kravitz stuck out as much in the largely white east eighty s of Manhattan as he did in, ah, a primarily black bed sty Brooklyn, where he lived during a week with his maternal grandparents while his parents worked the city. It was a problem. He was comfortable, says the man, who, decades later would push the boundaries of rock and fashion, the very definition of cool, even into new frontiers. I dug that.
Whitehead once wrote that everyone's New York is the New York they first arrive in,
that they begin building their own private skyline the moment they lay eyes on a city. Kravitz, 59 Wow, 59 years old,
arrived in Manhattan a few times, always welcomed by a different city.
His parents had an apartment around the corner from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 82nd street. He spent his middle and high school years in Los Angeles, but returned in the late 80s when he moved in with his girlfriend, Lisa Bonet, Huxtable herself. A decade and a half later, after trying out, uh, both New Orleans and Miami, he came back with his and Bonet's daughter, a then teenage Zoe Kravitz.
misses all the past lives in New York for different reasons. But as White had predicted, his true New York is the one sitting here in Bemelmans brings him back to
Upper east side.
all, he says, it changes more slowly than perhaps. Perhaps any other neighborhood in the city.
bells, his mother's favorite butcher shop, remains around the corner from their old apartment.
preferred cafe, eat E-A-T
still just down the street. Of course, some things inevitably change, and like any New Yorker, Kravitz delights in recalling what a current building used to be. Example, the nectar diner on 82nd in Madison was once the copper lantern where young Lenny first learned to tie his shoes.
rarely comes to town just to visit. It's almost always for work, and this trip is no exception.
he's in New York,
is typically in a constant state of motion, so you get the sense that Kravitz himself wouldn't use the word work to describe his various ventures in interior design, philanthropy and spirits.
just as busy as ever this week, but it's in service of his first love.
the first time since 2018, he is on the verge of releasing new music, blue electric light, a, uh, buoyant. Occasionally blistering electro funk collection drops March 15. Wow.
to hear that.
has long favored first person storytelling and song,
on two of his recent releases, he mainly looked outward.
and white America in 2011, brimming with Obama era optimism, imagines life in the USA beyond the racial divide. Raise vibration. Two bears witness to the comedown, urging positivity as a necessary response to the divisive Trump tenure.
his new set, Kravitz's attention has returned inward.
testimony to the power of self love and personal evolution is searingly specific and at times downright anthemic. It also, and this is important, flat out cooks musically, the arrival of blue electric light marks the end of the longest span Kravitz has gone between albums since his 1989 debut, Let Love Rule.
Ten records followed his first one, each dropping a steady clip. The pandemic shutdown had a lot to do. With the atypical five year lag time. But Kravitz credits the isolation imposed by Covid with triggering the period of powerful creativity and reflection.
showed up at his Bahamas home in. Kravitz showed up at his Bahamas home in March 2020 with enough clothes for a weekend, two years into a three year tour. At the time,
thought he'd stop at the beach for a few days to recharge between runs of shows. But then the next leg got canceled and the next, uh. Kravitz stayed for the better part of the next two and a half years. Musical inspiration finds him on Iluthera, the island he calls home.
bought 30 acres when he signed his first record deal and for a long time lived in an airstream on his own beach.
still has it,
He since built a proper house elsewhere on the property.
a garden, uh, out back where he grows his own fruits and vegetables,
studio nearby. Shoes go out the window, he says. There's no keys, no wallets, no money. You start to go with nature.
is normally a night owl, going to bed around five in the morning. Morning and waking up at noon. But after a certain amount of time there, he resets,
to bed shortly after dark, wakes up early
the longest stretch of stillness of staying in one place in his adult life, music poured out. At times he barely slept at all, waking up at all hours, hearing melodies in his head and racing to get them down. He had three separate albums in progress. It was chaotic and occasionally hard to organize,
still to finish. But as the word began to open and live shows returned to calendars, Kravitz tinkered away in the studio,
different arrangements, dialing up the drums, lowering the vocals, mixing songs and then mixing them again. A thousand times, he said, I kept polishing. He expects we'll hear the two other sets, both mostly completed someday.
the music on Blue Electric light is what he's feeling now, he says. This one spoke to me.
devote the next six months to promotion and then the next couple years to a world tour. He's ready for all of that. Hungry. In fact,
one has to come out. It feels like Lenny Kravitz. Has been the epitome of cool forever. Yeah, just like I was saying earlier, right? But when let love Rule debuted, it did so in a lukewarm response. Stateside.
could argue that people didn't get it,
get him.
hip hop was exploding in popularity, here was a 24 year old black man from New York making rock music using vintage recording techniques and old as hell equipment at the same time, the rock chart she was trying to hit, almost wholly white in makeup, then
rattling with pumped up lps from the likes of Aerosmith and Motley Crue. Ron Insular at times even delicate, there was nothing like his sound gaining traction. I look at him as someone who stuck to their guns, says longtime friend and occasional collaborator Jay Z.
is what I like. This is the type of music I like to create. He adds. He always applaud that someone who stays and does what they do and doesn't follow trends, someone who has the confidence in what they're doing, is very rare.
was different. His crowds were growing faster there,
he toured and toured and toured abroad. Second album, 1990, one's mama said, equal parts gritty and tender and musically steeped in the defied trends and expectations. The set went platinum, and his rock and roll peers were suddenly curious. Bruce Springsteen came to a show and became a friend. Prince, too, and when the purple one met Kravitz, he told him in no uncertain terms, we're going to be brothers.
Jagger, uh, a personal hero of Kravitz's,
wanted to hang out. Kravitz was floored. Jagger came backstage before a show, and spur of the moment, they decided they should sing together at night live, learned the song just before the house lights dimmed. Afterward, Jagger went to Kravitz's hotel, and the two spent the night talking and toking up.
I saved that roach for like ten years, Kravitz says. What happened to it then?
was out of weed and smoked it, he replies, laughing.
even after his next two albums, are you gonna go my way? 93, whose title track became a pop culture statement and circus 1995, did better and then better again. Cracking the top 20 and then the top ten of the all genre Billboard 200 albums chart, Kravitz struggled to be taken seriously by the rock critic establishment.
it wasn't that they didn't get it. Maybe it was that they didn't want him to have it.
was this one article that at the time said if Lenny Kravitz were white, he would be the next savior of rock and roll, he recalls. Instead, reviews dragged him for relying too heavily on his influences, accused him of lacking originality, of doing a led Zeppelin impression, as if Zeppelin never ripped off anybody.
I got a lot of negativities thrown at me by all these older white men who weren't going to let me have that position, he says calmly.
still aren't. 40 million records sold, four best male vocal performance Grammys in a row. An MTV video word from the time MTV video words still mattered. Concerts at the biggest venues on the planet. The true sign of relevance in this century. He's even an annual meme.
of Kravitz in his bewildering oversized scarf flood the Internet on the first day of fall each year. There would be no Tyler, the creator, without Delani, Kravitz says. Jay Z we need those moments of inspiration
pushes creativity and opens up lanes for others.
says he isn't bothered by the lack of respect he's received from critical institutions. It was discouraging at times, he'll allow, but he doesn't think much of it now. I'm good, intact, happy, healthy, focused, with still so much to do. That's more important. But ask him if he's aware of recent racist, misogynistic comments from Rolling Stone founder and former editor in chief Jan Wehner.
And Kravitz sits up. Very much so, he says,
those catching um up. While promoting his new book, the Masters, touted as a visit to the Mount Olympus of Rock, Wehner said in an interview with the New York Times that the reason all seven of his subjects are white men is that there aren't any woman or artists of color articulate enough on a subject to speak about it.
When times gave him an opportunity to rephrase what he said, Weiner doubled down.
very disappointing, Kravitz says. And sad. I've known Jen since 1987. Met Wayne before he even made his first record. When Bonet was on the COVID of the hot issue, pregnant with Zoe, the two men became friendly. I've been to his house in his life. He's had Wayner's ex wife and their children.
His son, Gus, is the current CEO of Rolling Stone down to the Bahamas.
it's Kravitz's turn to double down. I was disappointed. I was very disappointed. It's not just a personal connection that hurts. The statement alone, even if you just heard about the man yesterday, was appalling and embarrassing, Kravitz says. And just wrong. Those old reviews make a bit more sense when you read those comments.
I suggest
one word answer yes.
is more mystified, though, by how he's been treated by black entertainment and culture outlets. Take Vibe magazine, which features a who's who of black artists in his pages when it began publishing in 1993 but waited almost a decade to put Kravitz it's on the COVID
it wasn't just vibe. To this day, I've not been invited to a bet thing or a source awards thing, he says. And it's like, here is the black artist who has reintroduced. Produce many black art forms who has broken down barriers just like those that came before me broke down.
That is positive, and they don't have anything to say about it.
got a point, and it's not as if he has scandals hanging over him. Punch
Unquote Lenny Kravitz controversy into the search engine of your choice and all that comes up is a wardrobe malfunction involving a pair of split leather pants that was out of his control.
Kravis can't make sense of the reception he's received over the years. He doesn't understand why his success is not celebrated by the folks who run those publications or organizations.
have been that dream, an example of what a black artist can do. Still, he doesn't want to complain. Life is too beautiful. I'm not here for the accolades, he says after a pause. I'm here for the experience. For all his gilded trappings, fame can be punishingly isolating.
famous people are so rarely alone. For a long time, Kravis was no exception. His homes were busy and loud, teeming with bad mates. Revelations. And woman groupies and neighbors. At one point, even a professional joint roller whom Kramitz used to keep in his employ,
claiming to be his friend, to love him.
are these people? His mom used to ask. Sounds like she has a good reason.
one visit to his loft on Broom street in Manhattan Soho neighborhood following the release of Mama said, she sat down to eat with her son at the dining room table.
in a classic case of famous man feng shui, the dining room table was right next to the pool table, and there was a guy sleeping under it. He popped up at the commotion, and Roger couldn't believe her eyes.
mom looked up and said, and your name is?
house in Miami? The first one, though he doesn't own any property there these days, was basically a recording studio and a nightclub. It was absolutely insane, his daughter, Zoe says, referring to the period right after she arrived in the sunshine State at age eleven
live with Kravitz for the first time in her life.
and Bonet split in 1991 and divorced in 1993. It was like living in a mall or an airport, where people are just constantly coming in and out. Eventually, though, it became clear that a lot of those friends weren't actually friends.
didn't love him. I got burned, said Kravitz. Completely.
put it all out there, and I put it all out there in a way for people to take advantage of it.
was an empty vessel. Zoe shares a story about an incident that wasn't funny at the time, but that she laughs about now. When he actress was 14 or 15, she and a friend ascended into the kitchen to find a woman they'd never seen at the table eating a slice of pie.
big deal.
were always people she didn't know in the house.
when her dad came home and asked to be introduced to Zoe's other friend, they both froze.
ended up being some unwell person who found their way into the house,
recalls. We realized we need to button this up a little bit.
cleaning ranks was unnatural for Kravitz. Saying no is very difficult for me, he explains.
was like that from childhood. My mom used to call me the Pied Piper. I bring everybody home. Just met them a few hours ago. I bring them home. I love people. I always have love people.
perhaps it wasn't just his personality type, he considers, but also the color of his skin.
black in America at that time, he says, referencing his childhood in the 70s, everybody's sticking together,
helping each other.
always an extra seat at the table. There's always extra food. You take care of your people.
the time Kravitz decided to tighten his circle, he had been famous, super famous, for more than a decade. The toll was obvious. There were stretches on tour when he would head back from a show, close the blinds and sleep until it was time to do the next one. Spend even just a little time with Kravitz,
it's obvious that he is naturally suited to having fun. When Robert Plant, supporting a solo album opened for Kravitz in the evening, included the Led Zeppelin frontman yelling at his headliner for taking his concerts too seriously. You need to start having a good time with this, Kravitz Bellows, recalling the scolding
few years later on her. Deathbed, Roka offered a warning by way of an admission when she told her only son, I wish I hadn't taken it all so seriously.
wouldn't come for several more years,
had become too closed off, and he struggled with feelings of depression.
were times when I had to fight that darkness, he says now,
the people who loved him kept pushing.
used to have to really confront him, says Zoe. Her message
don't see you very often. Get rid of all these people.
his home life got quieter, Kravitz evolved, blossomed.
what's allowed all this growth, not only as a person but as an artist, says Zoe. He's taken the time. It's the quiet moments when you have all these little epiphanies, these emotional shifts.
made space for that.
communication, she says, improved along with his outlook.
echoes the sentiment. Now I'm in a place where I just want to embrace the light.
inner circle agrees.
don't know what. The definition of a great friend is, says Denzel Washington. But I am sure there is a picture of Lenny Kravitz next to the words.
and Kravitz became friends so long ago that any details regarding their initial meeting are outside of memory's reach. But the actor, famous for roles in training day in american gangster, does remember hearing Kravitz's music before they fell in with each other,
with a laugh, I don't know if I bought any of it. Just being honest. The two men raise their kids along alongside each other, and now they all gather at Kravitz's home in the Bahamas every year.
better, though, says Washington, is that their greatest memories lie ahead.
best thing I can say about our friendship is that it's still happening.
Z can't remember how he and Kravitz met either.
to think of it, been too long.
they share a group of friends and get together when they can. Over the summer, it was in Paris for Beyonce's concert. That was a great night, the rapper recalls of seeing his wife's show with close friends,
out, celebrated, went out some more, sang happy birthday to one of the people they were with, and to Kravitz. Who hadn't even revealed it was his birthday. Being Paris was super special, Jay Z says by way of explanation. These days, Kravitz splits most of his time between his homes in Paris and the Bahamas,
he also owns a farm in the brazilian highlands
the french capital. He surrounds himself with a small group of locals, a few Americans, many Africans.
go out and eat, see concerts. Kravitz's French isn't great. I get by, he says. S
loves the ballet and the opera, the fashion and just feeling the energy of the city.
he wakes up each afternoon, he figures out what he wants to create that day. Often it's music. Other times his design work with his firm, Kravitz Design, which has transformed a slew of high end homes as well as a Manhattan apartment complex since opening in 2003.
may be for photography. Kravitz's pictures have been shown in several exhibitions, and he shot an ad campaign for Don Perrin, or could have something to do with Nokaluna, his new liquor brand. Which brings one of Mexico's most curious spirits so tall to the international market. Whatever it is, it's not work to him.
It's just living. I'll confess something.
always been a little bit fascinated by the impossibly attractive, somehow even more talented blended family that still connects Lisa Bonet
Lenny Kravitz.
two dated young, married young and became parents young.
then a household name, threw a role on the Cosby show, was just 21 when Zoe was born. Kravitz was 24. He credits Bonet and their relationship with finally unlocking his creative vision. Before they met, he'd been trying on alter egos like Romeo Blue, wearing blue contacts with his hair in Princeesque Jerry curls and considering a record deal that would have made him the frontman of an all black version of Duran Duran.
was not sold on me. Let love Rule is, by and large, an album about falling in love. But Kravitz and Bonet's romance didn't survive more than the first few years of his ascent.
despair Kravitz felt as it began to unravel. Is all over, Mama said,
the years after required a lot of work for them to be on an even keel. Zoe stayed with her mother in Topanga, California, away from the spotlight.
good now, and have been for decades. In 2005, Bonet began dating actor Jason Momoa, and Kravitz took him in as well. He became his brother and uncle Lenny to the two kids Momoa and Bonet would have together in their near two decade relationship. Kravitz doesn't really get the public interest in his healthy relationship with Bonet.
Why is everyone so curious about how it all works?
sees posts with long captions about how they're an inspiration, how, uh, this is the way it should be between exes. And it's not as if he's not flattered. But for Kravitz, it's simple. It's family.
when it wasn't working, we knew one day it would. It had to. I wouldn't think of it as this heroic feat, he says.
is just normal to me. Still true today as that family has recently entered another new phase.
and Momoa split in early 2020. 22 after 17 years together.
according to Kravitz, the bond between each, while different, is just as important. Case in point, in a crisis of parenthood, Kravitz was stuck in the Bahamas and missed the New York premiere of the Batman starring Zoe last year. Bonet couldn't make it, either.
got you, Momoa assured Kravitz. I'm going to this one. I'll be there.
he was bringing Zoe's half siblings along with him. Tabloids furiously speculated about whether Momoa and Bonet were reuniting, but they missed the point. Family shows up. It was beautiful, Kravitz says
has no trouble talking about his family, his ex, her ex, his mom and the life she opened up to him. Sitting on Duke Ellington's lap at the Rainbow Room in Manhattan, being serenaded with happy birthday as he turned six. Bonding over music with Miles Davis, then married to Kravitz's godmother, Cicely Tyson.
Wasting away an evening right here at the Carlisle, listening to Bobby
you spent all this time in school playing music rather than studying, it was Taj. Hall,
genre altering american blues singer who sat his father down and told him to let Lenny run at it.
that must have been such a crazy childhood to be surrounded by that type of people, all those muses around him from early on. I guess it's not really a surprise that he's become such a creative being and an artist. And, uh, his daughter's following suit as well, right? Just being stuck in that environment, it's only natural, almost.
provided his daughter with a similarly charmed childhood. No shit. But as Zoe decided to pursue acting instead of delighting her, her background caused her anxiety. Instead of running at it, she ran from it. She even tried changing her last name when she began her career.
understood it, said Kravitz, but I was like, that's your name.
you been online in the past two years? Okay, great. So you're familiar with the term Nepo baby or Nepo baby? Of course. We're talking about the phenomenon at a moment when, after decades of the entertainment. Entertainment industry being full of sons and daughters and nephews and nieces and granddaughters and grandsons.
You get it. Of other famous people. The Internet has finally had enough.
are filled with accusations of how nipple babies get better treatment. The term has become a slur.
New York magazine did a story on the subject, it included a picture of Zoe on the COVID I don't understand that whole thing, Kravitz says.
quote unquote. And it's a big if, he admits
are good at what you do,
unquote. It's been a while since Kravitz has had a serious partner. He's been one half of many an IT couple over the years. After Bonet, he dated singer and model Vanessa Parazzi for five years.
popped the question to brazilian supermodel Adriana Lima in the early two thousand s
then got engaged to Nicole Kidman not long after his previous engagement fell apart. He dated Lima's countrymate and fellow lingerie model Barbara
in the 2010s.
the outside. It looked pretty cool. But on the inside, as each relationship failed, Kravitz struggled. He felt cursed.
up, Kravitz was especially close to his mother.
was strict but caring, worked tirelessly, first at NBC, then in a New York theater community.
became a household name when she landed a landmark role as part of the television's first on screen interracial couple on the Jeffersons. When Roker booked that gig, only she and her son moved to LA at first, and during the show's first season, they slept next to each other on his godmother's pull out couch.
took two buses to work, spending hours each day in transit at home. Once the show was renewed and her husband had relocated, the family living under one roof again, Roker still did all the cleaning, using her off hours to scrub floors and toilets.
was humbled, but her unwillingness to show off the life she'd earned for her family was rooted elsewhere. Sai had difficulty finding his professional footing out west, trying on a variety of showbiz roles, manager. Agent, producer. Nothing stuck.
watched his mother make herself smaller so that her husband might feel bigger.
also floundered. Under his father's rule,
had served in the army, and for him, there was only one way of doing anything.
Kravitz was 16, the tension boiled over and he moved out.
would never live with his parents again, spending the next few years bouncing between friends'couches and rental cars.
19, Kravitz's discovered that his father was having an affair. He begged his mother to fly him to the Bahamas, where she was visiting her own father, so he could break the news in person. Except Roker wasn't surprised.
had been cheating on her throughout their marriage. She revealed
would stay together for a short while longer, until Roker learned how much money her husband had sifined off for his mistresses and gambling.
uh, Psy packed up and prepared to leave,
asked him if he had anything to say to their son,
was there to witness his departure.
do it, too, he spat.
Oof, that is rough. Wow. I'm no psychologist, but definitely some trust issues there.
a saying in the Bahamas for a moment like that,
put mouth on me.
a spiritual world. It's called a word curse, Kravitz says across our table at Bemelman's.
goes back to anything in the Bible where God spoke everything before it has done. Let there be light. The light just wasn't there. He spoke it into existence.
felt that his father spoke something into existence for him. Sai's words haunted him for years. I felt it when he said it. But the shockwaves lasted decades and got stronger and stronger and stronger. He did indeed have trouble staying faithful in his romantic relationships.
parenthesis I won't lie to you, he says, a alongside the emission, hands folded in front of him and with quote unquote, being confident that this is the person for me, always thinking something else may be better.
all worked itself out now. It was hardcore.
years,
than he would have liked. Though he doesn't deal regret, those moments, he says, are part of the journey. Still, he certainly sounds sorry when he recalls what his own partners went through. I put some people through some hard times.
has come close to marriage a couple of times since his split with Bonet. The desire has always been there, he says, accounting for the near misses.
tools in which to do so may not have been there.
currently single,
he get married again.
wants to actually. Absolutely.
grown enough.
become stronger. I've become more disciplined.
become more open to be able to do so.
it's been a very difficult thing for me to figure out. I mean, the dude is a rock star. I mean, not only is a rock star, he's a very cool, very good looking, very well dressed rock star. What do you think is going to happen? He's going to have women throwing themselves at him 24/7 so, I mean, the temptation is definitely there.
mean, for him, it's definitely harder than most. Average men for sure. No doubt about it. Listen, I'm no psychologist, but
his line of work, I think it definitely takes much more discipline and much more willpower
the average man, if you know what I'm saying. To be faithful. Though he hasn't come close again, he's open to having more kids, too. I could not, and I could, he explains. If it doesn't happen, I've done the best with Zoe that I could ever dream to do
I was with somebody that wanted to have kids. Absolutely. A hundred percent.
for Kravitz and his own father, they got to a better place before Sai's death. It didn't come easy. There was so much resentment, Kravitz admits, so much yearning to be loved by him in a way that I could comprehend. Barker urged Kravitz not to ever give up on his pops.
That's your dad, she always said.
you're going to do what you're supposed to do. Honor thy father. No ifs, buts or unlesses.
psy aged, his hardened posture towards the sun began to soften.
they were sitting together watching baseball, not really talking at all, psy turned to Kravitz. I can't believe what you've achieved, he said
the end of his life. In the hospital, he apologized to Kravitz, as well as to Kravitz's half sisters.
was a moment, says Kravitz. The healing process for him finally began.
it's never enough time, is it? Total forgiveness was still a ways off.
wish you got to live to when I had grown more.
wish you got to live to when I had grown more, Kravitz says. Where I could have loved on him in a deeper way,
would have had so much fun. If he could have lived to the place where I learned what I needed to learn. Kravitz imagines the memories they might have shared. Instead, in my mind,
dream of all the fun we would have had, he says.
not the same, but it's enough.
icons are rarely known for moderation, but Kravitz has worked hard to keep any potential vices in check.
drugs were never really his thing, though he did famously admit to smoking weed every single day from ages eleven to 35. Drinking wasn't a problem either.
is not sober,
he can go months at a time without booze. Sex, while readily available and sometimes with a person other than his girlfriend, was never something he says he aggressively chased.
was more motivated by love.
of his approach to sex was formed while he was in high school. I remember the girls always liking the bad guys, he says.
it was like, if I have to act like them to have a girlfriend, I'm not down. There was also an incident that Kravitz writes about in his excellent 2020 memoir, Let Love Rule. When his parents were out of town, they enlisted a family friend to watch their son, then a teenager.
And one night, when that man, old enough to be his uncle, had friends over, Kravitz's retired to his room to sleep.
woman soon entered, slipped into his bed and began touching him.
a brief passage, but he writes that the incident would affect the way he would view sex from then on end. I wasn't interested in convincing or coercing women, he writes about his approach
intimacy going forward.
been coerced myself, and being. Didn't like it. I asked if he considers the interaction sexual assault.
resists the label.
was an experience and a lesson, he begins. Everything doesn't have to be so he changes course.
not saying that there aren't things that deserve to be addressed. Maybe somebody would say it should have been addressed and that it was whatever.
that's the time it was. I lived and I learned I wasn't traumatized.
you sure about that, Lenny? Are you really sure about that?
what can throw Kravitz off balance?
internal factors, it turns out.
a naturally introspective person, he's long struggled with overthinking. He is also still prone to darkness and feeling down. He admits it could happen tomorrow, but over the years he's been able to shorten the duration of the spells.
used to last days or weeks now takes up only a few hours of his time, never more than a day.
don't let that go overnight, he says.
path out is mental and physical. Kravitz believes his intense dedication to his diet and exercise greatly helps him stay positive.
It's not just the actual food he eats, which is mainly vegan and primarily raw, or the specific moves he does in the gym. It's a discipline to make those decisions. It's a sacrifice, he says. And then accomplishing that daily goal when you exercise that it makes you stronger in all the other ways.
also spiritual.
Travis about the roots of his relentless optimism, and the answer, sir, comes quickly. My constant faith in God and the power of love.
for a time in his youth he considered observing his father's faith
getting bar mitzvahzed,
experienced a religious conversion in middle school and has accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ ever since.
tried out a few churches in LA afterward. But he doesn't claim an organization as his own. Um,
he doesn't claim an organization as his own now,
the most part, church's everyday life, he says. I wake up in church and I'm aware of God all day long. I can't escape it. It's so powerful to me.
LGBTQ plus. Plus, community has been a huge influence on Kravitz throughout his life,
only in fashion and style, because that's just something on top, he says, but in deeper ways, too. They raised me. I was in the street, my choice, and it was the West Hollywood.
was that time. Artists, musicians, hairstylists and designers, those were the people I was hanging out with. I wanted to be around the creatives, and most of the people I met were from that community.
took him in and, he says, protected me, educated me, fed me.
doesn't deny that organized religion has been awful to the community he loves. They aren't the only ones who have had the good word weaponized against them. He is quick to remind me. The Ku Klux Klan themselves were reading out of the Bible, he says. And as he figures and history surely supports, people will always use Jesus Christ to back something up.
That's got nothing to do with how Jesus Christ would handle the situation. That's the reality that changes his relationship only with church, not God, says Kravitz.
Washington, the son of pentecostal minister and now a self proclaimed man of God. Finds inspiration in Kravitz's relationship with his divine
read the daily word every day, he says,
the word for today I tore the piece of paper out, so maybe I was supposed to read some of it to you. Is inspire. I've just asked if he could speak to what role faith plays in his relationship with Kravitz and Washington, reads me the entry in reply.
give thanks to those who have helped me spiritually
a reflect on those teachers and wise guys who've inspired me along my spiritual journey. I prayerfully center each one in the love and light of God, remembering the ways they supported and encouraged me.
radiant souls nurtured my spiritual growth. I don't know if that's an answer to your question, he says, but that's my answer. Lenny Kravitz looks like he just woke up. It's 01:00 p.m. The following Wednesday, and he's in Miami.
on Zoom, and Kravitz is in bed, wearing a silvery sheer tank top.
there for only a second as he seems to reconsider his background, quickly moving to the kitchen of wherever he is staying. After a few minutes, he makes an espresso. When we were parted the week before. Kravitz was heading straight to his dentist's office to discuss plans their annual dental mission in the Bahamas.
The next day
had a big photo shoot hours, and then jetted off to Florida to film a new music video. Somewhere along the way he also dropped a video for blue electric lights lead single TK four two one. What, did that song get tapped to go first?
played the unreleased lp for a couple of friends.
know them as Bono and the edge of you too, and they were insistent.
even texted me days later saying, you really need to come out with that one first.
a glamorous sprint of events, sure, but also kind of a grind.
at this point in Kravitz's life, totally optional, at least financially. When artists could still make money off selling records, he sold a hell of a lot of them.
lives in an eight bedroom townhouse in Paris that farmers zillow. It's 1000 acres.
a Bahamas place too, of course. I suggest as much, and Kravish shrugs, but Jay Z gets what I'm saying. There was a point early on that I was like how, uh, How is this guy so sick? Like, what's going on? Just his lifestyle. He's like a renaissance man living between Paris and New York.
And then I remember that he writes and produces. There's no one else in the process.
remember thinking how extraordinarily talented he is. And then I remember thinking, wow, those publishing checks.
could probably take a break if he wanted.
what is that? Kravitz says in response.
know what I mean? What drives me is a creative it's not just something to do, it's the thing to do.
rezon diet,
most grueling extension of his creativity, is, without a doubt, touring 34 years in, Kravitz knows what it takes to prepare for years on a road.
life is that
tickets go on sale, he says, your whole life is centered around being able to do those two and a half hours every night.
you don't hang out, you don't smoke, you don't drink, you don't talk a lot. You've got to get your sleep. You have to want to do it. In other words, you have to need to do it.
doesn't just happen, Kravitz cautions. But he won't stop anytime soon. He's built his entire existence around being able to do it, and there's a bahamian phrase for that as well. If you love it, let it kill you.
all right, there's the article. I hope you enjoyed it. I don't know about you, but I'm super looking forward to March 15 when his album comes out. Truthfully, I haven't gone to Landon Kravitz's latest albums as much as I did in the past, but I'm looking forward this one, especially after reading this article, just to see what he's up to and see if his sound has changed at all.
All right, if I brought you value, please
like and subscribe and I'll see you in the next episode.