Lenny Kravitz
On his new memoir, making peace with his father, and why he turned down ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’
On his new memoir, making peace with his father, and why he turned down “Somebody’s Watching Me.”
As the pandemic was spreading in early March, Lenny Kravitz left his Paris home and decamped to his retreat on Eleuthera, a small island in the Bahamas. There, he’s been living the simple life, growing his own food and using trees as makeshift workout benches. Kravitz has been in a reflective mood, thanks to his new memoir, Let Love Rule. It’s the first of two volumes, covering his life up to the release of his 1989 debut album. It’s a fascinating look at Kravitz’s life-long duality: a biracial kid, the son of an NBC Newsproducer dad (Sy Kravitz) and TV-actress mom (Roxie Roker, of The Jeffersons), shuttling between Manhattan and Brooklyn before moving to Los Angeles, where he felt equally at home hanging out in Beverly Hills mansions, skate parks, or goth and New Wave clubs. “I’ve always said I love the extremes,” Kravitz says. “It’s in the middle that I don’t do very well.”
Why write a memoir now, and why break it up into two parts?
Well, I never thought about writing the book [until recently]. I didn’t think my life was that interesting. But I’m glad that I did because writing was the best form of therapy I could have ever taken. This was a story about me finding my voice, and I didn’t want it to be about stardom or fame. The second book will be a far more difficult book to write. Things got intense, but I think writing it will provide the same level of therapy and a lot will be healed.
I was shocked to read that after you caught your father cheating on your mother, he told you, “You’ll do it too,” before he was kicked out of the house.
I was about 19. It was a deep statement at a time when I believe my mother wanted him to say something that would have benefited me. And he just went there.
I didn’t realize how deeply that had penetrated my being. But when I look back at it, I can understand now, without judgment, that he was just speaking what he thought was his truth.
How do you think that affected you later in life?
It raised questions about commitment and “Could I do that?” But I spent some years working on getting that out of me. What was beautiful was that instead of seeing my father as my father and what he had done to me or to my mother, I got to see him as a man who was just trying to find his way to live through this experience. All of a sudden, all the judgment fell away. I ended up really liking him and understanding him. . . . I love my father, and I loved him more after writing this book. We made peace before he died.
You also write that Kennedy Gordy — Berry’s son — offered you a chance to sing “Somebody’s Watching Me,” which became a huge hit for him in 1984 under the name Rockwell.
He came over to my mom’s house with the first Linn
Drum drum machine, which was really big and heavy. “He’s like, ‘I got this tune for you.’ ” He sings me the song, and I’m like, “Wow, that’s good.” But again, as you see in the book, I kept turning things down. I was like, “It’s really good, but it’s you. You should do this, man.” At the time, Kennedy wasn’t thinking about himself as being an artist. Maybe he was thinking more about being a producer and a writer. The next thing you know, some months go by and I hear this song on the radio. I was like, “Holy shit.”
You also turned down a chance to play Marvin Gaye in a biopic.
I went to the gym where Marvin had trained with the boxing guy. The church where he sang the Lord’s Prayer in that beautiful piece of footage. The whole nine. I met the director, Julien Temple, who I really like as a person. But I just didn’t feel right about it — I can’t really tell you what wasn’t right about it. It’s a wonderful opportunity, but I’m just trying to do my thing.
You say in the book, “I am deeply two-sided.” What do you mean by that?
First of all, I’m born a Gemini — we all know what the classic Gemini thing is. My mother used to ask me, “OK, which one of you am I dealing with today?” I always had that double personality. I have a Christian, Afro Caribbean mother and a Russian Jewish father. I’m Lenny in Manhattan, but I’m Eddie in Brooklyn. I have the Upper East Side and I have Bed-Stuy; I have New York and L.A. You know, here
I am at 15, whatever, living in my parents’ house. My mother’s on the number-one television show. We’re living a beautiful life. What do I decide to do? Leave, because my father won’t let me go to a concert. And now I’m living in the street. Now I’m living in a car. Now I’m living on people’s floors. I put myself in that position.
But it works for me somehow. It always has.
In 1995, you told us, “I want to do this till I’m old and little. I’d like to be like John Lee Hooker, all in my little suit with my little gut hanging out, playing music, strumming my guitar.” Do you still feel that way?
I don’t want the gut, but, yeah, absolutely. Mick Jagger is 70-whatever and can still rock a stadium better than most 20-year-olds. I’m still young, and 20 some-odd years from now, when I get to where Mick is, I’ll still be doing it if we have a world where we can do that. I plan on doing this until I can’t.