Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz (born May 26, 1964, Manhattan, New York, U.S.) is an American musician known for his unique blend of rock, psychedelia, soul, funk, and hip-hop. From 1999 to 2002 Kravitz won four consecutive Grammy Awards for best male rock vocal performance—the most wins ever in the category. He is also known for his appearances in several films and for founding, in 2003, Kravitz Design Inc., a creative studio for branding, graphic, and interior design.

Early life

Kravitz was born to Roxie Roker, a Black actress famous for playing the character Helen Willis in the sitcom The Jeffersons (1975–85), and Sy Kravitz, a television news producer who was Jewish. He spent time both on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where his parents had an apartment, and in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, where his grandparents lived. In his memoir Let Love Rule (2020; written with David Ritz), he describes himself as “Black and white, Jewish and Christian, Manhattanite and Brooklynite.” He attended elementary school with children of various racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds. He also spent a lot of time in his youth at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, near his family’s apartment.

Kravitz was exposed to music from a young age, partly because his father was a promoter of jazz and knew performers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis. When he turned five years old, his parents took him to the Rainbow Room in Manhattan, where Ellington and his band sang “Happy Birthday” to him. About that time Kravitz began drumming on pots and pans and playing piano and guitar at home. He received his first guitar at age 10.

In 1974 the family moved to Los Angeles, where his mother was cast in The Jeffersons. At age 11 Kravitz began smoking marijuana, and he discovered the music of Led Zeppelin, Kiss, and Steely Dan. He later discovered Prince. Despite being close with his mother, Kravitz had a difficult relationship with his father, and during his teens he moved out of the house. He eventually rented a Ford Pinto, which he lived out of for a period of time. He was offered deals to record music but turned them down, not wanting to compromise his own music making for the popular music interests of recording companies.

Career

Kravitz’s first band was Wave, which featured two keyboardists, a bassist, four horn players, a drummer, two guitarists, and a trio of backup singers. The group’s music was a mix of genres, which made it difficult to gain a following. In the mid-1980s Kravitz met keyboardist and sound engineer Henry Hirsch, with whom he had a shared interest in using vintage equipment to record music. With Hirsch’s assistance, Kravitz recorded “Let Love Rule,” which in 1989 would become his debut single, released by Virgin Records on the album of the same name. The album was an immediate breakthrough. Kravitz’s wife at the time—actress Lisa Bonet, who starred on The Cosby Show (1984–92)—wrote the lyrics to several songs on the album.

In 1991 Kravitz released his second album, Mama Said. One of the album’s songs, “Always on the Run,” features Kravitz’s high-school friend Slash, who played guitar for Guns N’ Roses. Two other albums followed soon after, Are You Gonna Go My Way (1993) and Circus (1995). Through the 1990s he also wrote and recorded songs for a variety of artists, including Aerosmith, Kiss, and Vanessa Paradis.

Kravitz released his fifth studio album, 5, in 1998. The album received mixed reviews but yielded several hits and earned Kravitz two Grammy Awards, in 1999 for “Fly Away” and in 2000 for his cover of “American Woman,” a song originally written by Canadian rock group the Guess Who. His album Greatest Hits (2000) reached number two on the Billboard 200, making it his most successful album and earning him a third Grammy, for the single “Again.” Lenny (2001), Kravitz’s sixth studio album, features the popular single “Dig In,” for which he was recognized in 2002 with a fourth Grammy. Later albums include Baptism (2004), Black and White America (2011), Strut (2014), and Raise Vibration (2018). Collectively, his studio albums have sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. His 12th album, Blue Electric Light, is slated for release in 2024.

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Meanwhile, Kravitz appeared in multiple movies and television shows, including the films Precious (2009), The Hunger Games (2012), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), and The Butler (2013) and the shows Better Things in 2016 and Star in 2016–17. His business endeavor Kravitz Design Inc. took on numerous design projects for condominiums, hotels, and private residences. In 2022 Kravitz and Brazilian actress and singer Anitta were named Most Beautiful Vegan Celebrities by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).