Je vous conseille de regarder et lire très attentivement cette
FABULEUSE interview de Lenny par Alicia Keys (!!!) oui vous avez bien lu... par Alicia Keys
source :
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1285/is_2_38/ai_n24323688
Je la recopie ici au cas ou çà soit un jour éffacé (Et une itw aussi fabuleuse que çà je ne veux pas la perdre !!!)
Lenny Kravitz: how an identity crisis, the state of the world, and his own teenage daughter drove Lenny Kravitz to fly the peace-love-and-unity flag once again
ALICIA KEYS: I'm going to jump right in and start asking you questions about your upbringing, because I've never had a chance to interview you. Where did you grow up?
LENNY KRAVITZ: I was born in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, and I grew up between Bed-Stuy and the Upper East Side. At the time, my mom [actress Roxie Roker] had a job during the day as a secretary at NBC, and she was doing theater at night. My dad [Sy Kravitz] was working too, so I spent the weekdays in Brooklyn with my grandparents, and my parents would come have dinner with me every night. By the time I hit first grade, I was spending the weekdays on the Upper East Side and the weekends in Brooklyn. So I grew up between those two places, which were two different universes. Then, when I was 11, I moved to Los Angeles, when my mom got her part on The Jeffersons.
AK: Where would you say you got your swagger? You have a unique individual style and kind of musical flow. Where did that all come from?
LK: I think that having all of those different flavors in my life just gave me a bigger vocabulary. See, when I grew up in New York, the first records that blew my mind were by the Jackson 5. I got into Motown in general--Stevie [Wonder] and Marvin [Gaye] and Gladys Knight and the Pips, and all of that. Growing up in New York City with my parents, I was going to jazz gigs. We used to go hang out with Miles Davis. I knew Duke Ellington when I was a very small child. All of these incredible people, like Count Basle, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan--I had that whole influence as well. So when I moved to L.A., I didn't know anything about rock 'n' roll. We ended up moving to Santa Monica. It was 1975, so at the time, it was all about these kids skateboarding and smoking weed and listening to Led Zeppelin. It was just a whole new world for me. I learned about Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and Cream and the Who and all these groups, and the power of the guitar in rock 'n' roll music. Then I had this whole classical side because my mother was trying to keep me off of the streets, so she found this choir. It was called the California Boys' Choir. I auditioned for that, got in, and ended up singing with them, which led me to doing recordings with Zubin Mehta and singing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York City Opera, and everything else.
AK: Are you an only child?
LK: Yes, from my parents. I have two half sisters from my dad's first marriage.
AK: So, at that time, it was just you out there in L.A. with your mom?
LK: Yeah. Because my morn thought, We'll be back in six weeks--The Jeffersons is some spin-off pilot from All in the Family. Who knew it was going to be on for 11 seasons? My dad was still in New York, so it was just the two of us. My mom and I were living with my godmother, sleeping on a pullout couch. My mom, being the New Yorker that she was, had this TV show, and she was still taking the bus to work from Santa Monica into Hollywood.
AK: Did being out there alone with your mom change your life at all?
LK: It actually made me more comfortable, because my dad and I had a very difficult relationship. He came from a military background. He later became a journalist and worked in the news. He ended up moving out to California a couple of years later when both my parents realized The Jeffersons wasn't going away.
AK: When did you write your first song?
LK: I wrote a song when I was 7, with my next-door neighbor, called "I Love You, Baby." But the first real song that I wrote probably was ... Well, I don't know which song was first, but it was on the Let Love Rule [1989] album, because before that, I was playing behind other people. I was playing with this cat, and I got tired of it, and I decided, "You know what? I want to do my own thing. I hear this sound in my head, and I know how I want to record it--I hear the whole thing." So I sat in a room for a while with some keyboards and some guitars, and I just started writing this stuff. I think "Rosemary" was the first one, and then "Does Anybody Out There Even Care" and "Fear," and it turned into this whole record that became Let Love Rule.
AK: I was just running in the park to Let Love Rule, like, three days ago. I noticed for the first time, just as a thought--it's obviously your sound and your music, but it definitely felt almost like a mixture between the Beatles and Prince.
LK: You have ears of gold. Let me tell you a story: When I was getting signed, I'd made most of the record, and I was granted a meeting at Virgin Records. I'm sitting there with these record executives, and the whole time they're writing on these sheets of paper, back and forth, passing them around. I'm watching these people. Anyway, I came to find out that what they were writing was "Prince meets John Lennon."
AK: Do you think that was your vibe at the time? Is that what was inspiring you?
LK: Well, Prince definitely was someone I looked up to. I really identified with him because here was a guy who was drawing on music from all over the place, and he dressed his own way and had his own groove.
AK: That's what's crazy for me, because you know how much of a box there is for "black" music. It's like, "Oh, you're a black musician--you're probably an R&B singer."
LK: That's why I didn't get signed for years. People would listen to my tape and say, "We think you're really talented, but you can't do this. Well, we'll hook you up with a producer, and then you can make an R&B record." I never went for it.
AK: Thank God you didn't!
LK: Well, when I look back at the person I was then, I don't understand how I had the strength to not sell out. I mean, how does a guy who lives in his car say no to money and an apartment and an opportunity to make records? But, thank God, I didn't take any of those deals, because my career would have been over in an album.
AK: The word love is in a lot of the titles of your songs and your albums--including your new record, It Is Time for a Love Revolution [Virgin]. So talk to me about your first love. How does love move your world?
LK: Well, besides the hard time I had with my dad ... He passed two years ago, and we made peace before he died, just to let you know that's all good now, but when I was younger my relationship with him was really difficult. Everybody else in my family, though--my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, my grandfather--was really positive, loving, and open. So all I really knew was love. Then, as far as like a falling-in-love thing, I guess the first time that really happened to me was when I was around 13 and I met this girl in Santa Monica. That was my first falling-in-love, crazy thing as a teenager.
AK: Did it compel you to write?
LK: I wasn't writing music yet, but I'd write these long, very expressive letters.
AK: Would you call yourself a tender lover?
LK: Very. That's why I got no play in high school.
AK: [laughs] Really?
LK: Not until the very end. The way I wanted to be wasn't hip. I wanted to be, like, the sensitive nice guy. I'd be "The Friend"--"Oh, Lenny's so sweet, we can talk to him."
AK: The friend zone!
LK: Yeah, exactly.
AK: When did that change? Because obviously it totally changed.
LK: You know when it changed? I did my first concert at school. The next day it was like I was a whole different person. That damn guitar.
AK: So talk to me about It Is Time for a Love Revolution. What is your vibe right now?
LK: I feel really comfortable with who I am. I've gone in and out of that. For instance, the album before, Baptism [2004], was where I was really questioning myself, like, "Who am I? What have I been doing all these years?" I was really unsure. That was a beautiful record for me because I got to think about it and get it out of my system. Now, with It Is Time for a Love Revolution, it's like, "You know what? I've always really known who I am, and maybe I've gotten off-track here and there, trying to survive in this business." So I went away. I went to Paris--to a bunch of different places--and I ended up in Brazil. I needed that time to get centered without the influence of anybody else, without the business. Then I said, "I know who I am. It's the same guy who wrote the Let Love Rule record and all those other records. That's who I am." This record was kind of me getting back on that track. It's like Let Love Rule on steroids, because the world is a much worse place now than it was when that first album came out in 1989. We're in a grave situation, socially, politically, environmentally, spiritually. So I really feel that it's time for us--and me--to begin to change our consciousness. That, to me, is what Love Revolution is about. It's about beginning to love yourself and those around you.
AK: I have a strong love for both you and for your daughter, Zoe. How do you feel having a daughter who is coming into her own?
LK: It's nuts. I know I'm supposed to be a man and all that, but I still really feel like a 17-year-old kid. I guess with my genes, I look in the mirror and I'm like, "I haven't really changed, but I have a 19-year-old daughter--this doesn't make sense." But there she is. I'm proud of the job that her mother [actress Lisa Bonet] and I have done. I'm really happy with the way that we raised our daughter together. We took a situation that could have not gone in a positive direction because of our breakup and turned that into a positive. I look at this woman now, and the fact that God gave me this person to be my daughter is just the biggest gift I could ever have in my life. Now I'm watching her do her own thing, and it just reminds me of me so much--only it's better.
AK: So with all that's been done, and all that you've learned, and all the ways you've grown, and all the things that have brought you to today, do you ever want to just sit down somewhere and stop? What is your future?
LK: There've been times--even recently--when I've been very tempted to sit down. I told you about my whole journey in Brazil. I was there for four months on this farm, in the mountains, in the bush. I'm talking about waterfalls and monkeys and parrots and other animals, and riding horses and really chilling and observing nature. As the months went by, and as I kept going deeper into this place of peace, I was like, "I'm done. That's it. I don't want to leave here." It Is Time for a Love Revolution was finished at that point, so I was like, "I've got this record, I'm really proud of it, I feel it's the best work I've ever done, and I really do want to go out there and share it, but I don't want to leave. So what do I do?" I really thought about it and prayed about it, and I was like, "Well, you know what? I've had these four months, which was already a luxury in itself. I'm going to do this, and I'll come back when I can come back." For now, I'm going to keep going, and I'll know when the time to stop is--if it ever comes. Or maybe there will be periods of in-and-out, chilling and working, back and forth. I don't know. But for now, here I am.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MATTHIAS VRIENS
Alicia Keys recently kicked off a world tour in support of her latest album, As I Am (MBK/J Records).
COPYRIGHT 2008 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
