Lenny Kravitz Opens Up About His Marriage to Lisa Bonet In a New Memoir
Lenny Kravitz was exposed to a wealth of culture throughout his childhood, but it was the diverse influences of his mother (a Black actor), father (a white Jewish journalist), and grandparents that produced a singular talent.
Let Love Rule (Holt) is part one of Kravitz’s memoir, in which he chronicles his coming-of-age as an artist. From his home in the Bahamas—an Airstream and an adjacent shack—the Grammy-winning musician and first-time author spoke to O’s books editor, Leigh Haber.
You describe a distinct yin and yang within you—which makes total sense, as you’re a Gemini.
A quintessential Gemini!
“I am deeply two-sided,” you write. When did you become aware of the difference between your parents?
I never thought about it until my first day of school, when a kid bolted out of nowhere, pointed at them, and yelled, “Your mother’s Black and your daddy’s white!” I’d never realized before that my parents didn’t match. Yet somehow I knew that differences were blessings, that I had all these fabulous colors and characters and environments enriching me.
Your parents lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan—you lived across the street from Joe Namath! You partook of the glamorous life.
My parents took me out with them whenever possible. So it’s the early ’70s, and we’d go to Café Carlyle to see Bobby Short. To the Apollo to see James Brown. I took painting and sculpture classes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At age 7, I saw the Jackson 5 at Madison Square Garden.
You also spent a lot of time with your maternal grandparents, in what was practically a different universe.
Grandpa had a Bahamian Sidney Poitier–style accent; Grandma spoke with a slight Georgia drawl. Back then Bed-Stuy was a community comprised of relocated people from down South and the Caribbean. It felt safe. When I look back, I think of Mother Sister, Ruby Dee’s character in Do the Right Thing, who watches over the neighborhood from her window. We had Mother Sisters everywhere. Life there was not only its own distinct universe; I was a whole other person there.
In Manhattan, then in California, people like Sammy Davis Jr. and Taj Mahal were swirling around. But your first musical epiphany came when you were in junior high and heard “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin.
We’d just moved to L.A. after my mother, Roxie Roker, got cast in The Jeffersons. Until then I mostly listened to R&B, jazz, soul, and gospel—not so much rock ’n’ roll. At the time I was hanging around all these surfer-skateboarder kids in Santa Monica whose parents were hippies. They listened to Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Kiss, Cream, the Who. That’s when I fell in love with the electric guitar—the way it sounded, the way it looked, the attitude. It was while listening to Led Zeppelin IV that I smoked marijuana for the first time. It all hit me at once—how deep their music was. That moment changed my life. My ears, my mind, my soul were open.
You write that the experience made your head explode.
It opened a portal. After that, it was all about me getting an electric guitar and learning how to emulate those sounds.
But around that time you also started singing with the California Boys’ Choir.
My mother was worried I was being “idle,” so she set up the audition.
And you found you liked it.
Singing with them, I learned to use my voice properly, to sight-read. And the sound moved me. I wouldn’t be speaking to you today about a 30-year career in music had I not had that experience.
You’ve always resisted being pigeonholed. Where did you find that early confidence to hold steady even when the music industry feedback was “Your music isn’t Black enough” or “It’s not white enough”?
Even as a teenager, I turned down record deals and people telling me they were going to make me a star, though I was frequently living on somebody’s couch. I instinctively knew which doors were not to be walked through. My spirit wouldn’t allow me.
One of the couches you ended up on belonged to Lisa Bonet, about whom you write, “The poetry of her soul excited the poetry of my soul.” And that’s around the time when the music coalesced, right?
When I met her, I was still calling myself Romeo Blue—I wasn’t yet comfortable being Lenny Kravitz. I was still asking myself who I was and what I was trying to do. I saw myself in Lisa, and our whole love story opened up my life to the next plateau. It allowed the music to pour into me without me having to try.
What did you want to express when you wrote the song “Let Love Rule,” which is also the title of your book?
No matter what our differences, the final outcome between people must be love. It’s easy to love you when everything is fabulous, when you’re treating me the way I feel you should. It’s when things go wrong that we have to dig deep.
“Let Love Rule” should be our anthem right now.
Who wants to be in a world full of me’s? I want the bouquet.
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