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Why Lenny Kravitz is so hot, and why women fans are screaming - Cover Story
Ebony, Jan, 2002 by Kimberly Davis
LENNY Kravitz is mistaken--he seems to think it's all about the music.
On one level, he's right. It's the music--that defiant blend of retro and modern rock, soul, funk and even hip-hop under raspy, honest vocals--that drives him and made him a superstar.
But it's the image that often transcends the music--the muscled, tattooed and pierced body that seductive sensuality and full-out emotion that make women want to he with him and make men want to be him.
It's a breezy sun-kissed afternoon at Kravitz's visually stunning oceanfront home in the trendy Biscayne Point area north of Miami Beach, and a hulking, lumbering Mastiff of a dog, named Otis, "guards" the front gate--and a black Mercedes SUV, silver Ferrari, turquoise motor scooter and an El Camino.
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Inside, Kravitz is straight-up lounging, while two of his toys, KISS and Captain Fantastic pinball machines, lurk against one wall, waiting for a game.
Relaxing on one of the orange, amorphous couches in the retro, glass-walled room with a view of the Atlantic, Kravitz (the rock icon voted Most Fashionable Artist at the VH-I/Vogue Fashion Awards in 1999) is sporting comfy, gray knit pants, a much,worn white T-shirt with a dragon emblazoned on the front, gray cardigan sweater and braids creeping out of a chocolate-brown crocheted cap. His face has that just-past-5 o'clock shadow, his feet are bare--toes sinking into the red, shag carpeting--and he is looking ... sexy. Not sexy like you'd expect him to look sexy; but Saturday-morning-I-want-to-cook-you-pancakes sexy.
Sex appeal? The 37-year-old New York native has it to spare, and the multitalented artist says he doesn't know why women find him appealing. Oh, really?
"I have no idea," he protests at an upraised eyebrow. `I'm just me; I don't know. I don't look in the mirror and go, `Ooohhh.' I take care of myself, I like fashion, I like clothes, I like style, but I couldn't say why. I don't think about the image and all that. I just think about the music--that's my world."
For the past 12 years, since the release of his first album, Let Love Rule, in 1989, family, fame, love and loss have defined the world of Lenny Kravitz. The international superstar has seen his career build every year.
Now, with the release of his sixth studio album, Lenny, his first collection of new, original material since 5 broke down barriers in 1998, Kravitz once again makes it personal with a raw, positive celebration of love, life, God and man. As a follow-up to his multiplatinum Greatest Hits, the new CD picks up where the Grammy-winning single "Again" left off--stripped down, acoustic, bare-your-soul rock.
"As a musician, the success is that people listen to the records, enjoy the records, and that I'm still here 12 years later doing what I do, never having compromised," Kravitz says. "Every record that I've made for the company has been something that I've done on my own ... I wouldn't have it any other way."
As on his earlier albums, Lenny is basically all Kravitz all the time. He plays nearly all of the instruments, and is the sole producer, arranger and writer for all of the tracks except two on which he shares credit with guitarist Craig Ross. It's the same thing Kravitz has been doing since he cut the record deal with Virgin all those years ago. (He recently renewed that deal for millions.) Kravitz has the freedom to make his music his way.
"One of the things I love about Lenny is his ear for quality sound and for his openness--his willingness to listen to anything," says Cindy Blackman, a drummer who has toured with Kravitz for nine years. "He's very versatile; he can groove on any instrument ... He's not just a rock `n' roller he has depth."
With influences as diverse as Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix, and Black people invented rock `n' roll, Kravitz is not only good to look at, he's deep too.
Born in Brooklyn in 1964 to actress Roxie Roker who won fame as Helen Willis on The Jeffersons, and Sy Kravitz, a TV producer, Kravitz was a child of two different cultures. Early on, his parents let him know that he was richly blessed to be half African-American/Bahamian and half Russian-Jew and that no one could take any part of that away from him.
At the same time, however; his mother also made sure he knew that he was Black. In this increasingly global and splintered society, where youth can sometimes be torn apart by trying to fit into two worlds, Kravitz says it's up to the parents to instill the right values.
"I would tell [bi- or multiracial] kids just to understand that you don't have to be just one thing." Kravitz says. "I think it makes life more interesting. The fact that I had both backgrounds gave my life a lot of extra flavor."
That's a message Kravitz is passing on to Zoe, his daughter with Lisa Bonet. He has had custody of the child for two years. Kravitz and Bonet, who legally changed her name to Lilakoi Moon, married in 1987, divorced amidst much publicity in 1993, and after a rocky period, have a "really beautiful friendship" and a peace that's essential to the family, Kravitz says,
