Sunday Conversation: Lenny Kravitz On Liberty, Coltrane And NYC Clubs

Forbes

04-05-2025

Lenny Kravitz
This past Friday night (May 2) Lenny Kravitz put on a masterclass in rock stardom owning the BeachLife stage in Redondo Beach, CA. Ninety minutes of hits, it was the kind of performance that has made Kravitz as big a rock star as anyone the last 30 years. And it was even more impressive given during an exclusive interview Friday afternoon Kravitz told me he had just flown in from Paris that day. Once under the lights though, not a trace of jet lag of course. BeachLife was the start of a summer run of US dates that will include a Vegas residency the beginning of August.
Despite the busy schedule of being a rock god, the ever humble and gracious Kravitz is talking to me on this particular occasion about a student essay contest he is helping judge in NYC. I know it sounds like something out of a Christopher Guest mockumentary on first read – having arguably the rock star of the twenty-first century judge a student essay contest. But it is totally keeping in character for Kravitz, who in his quest for giving back and learning, is the perfect person to help enlighten students.
The Future Generation Essay Contest, put on by The Soloviev Foundation, is part of the larger Path of Liberty: That Which Unites US exhibit to be held in NYC starting May 15. A press release explains, 'The Future Generations Essay Contest will recognize 21 students in grades 6-12 with awards ranging from $500 to $5,000 to support their future educational pursuits. The winning essay will be announced on May 8, 2025, during the official ribbon cutting ceremony for Path of Liberty: That Which Unites US, and the selected student will have the opportunity to read their essay before an audience of community leaders, advocates, and stakeholders. Students' work will also be prominently featured within the exhibit, which opens to the public on May 15, 2025.'
That is where our conversation begins.
Steve Baltin: It's probably refreshing and inspiring to look at liberty through the eyes of the perspective of kids right now.
Lenny Kravitz: I watched my parents do it and you have to continually move walls. You have to continually redefine, and you have to continually move the dream forward. What I think is interesting and very strange is that if you'd asked me in 1989 when I wrote 'Let Love Rule,' and that was the mantra to my whole musical existence, if I thought things would be better or worse 35 years later, I would have thought that we've surpassed where we are. I would have thought the way things were moving and what I saw my parents go through and then what I went through and how the world was changing, I would have thought we would have been in a much more evolved place right now. But the journey is the journey. We are where we are. And we have to, as folks back in my parents' days say, we got to keep on keeping on. So, yes, you have this new generation who's grown up in this completely different world than what we grew up in, that grew up with social media and all of this and computers and phones and all of the what's going on that we didn't have. They have their point of view, their battles, their definition of what they believe freedom is and liberty and all of that. So, it's just part of the process, but as I said, it's not where I thought we'd be.
Baltin: Unfortunately, it's not where anybody thought we would be. So, does something like this become more important to force people to think and, again, put it into the perspective of kids who normally have much more optimism and have the chance to fix what other generations have completely f**ked up?
Kravitz: Yeah, it's part of the learning process, seeing what these kids think, and hearing their voices, hearing their perspectives. Yeah, I think that we know what we feel freedom is. And some of the things that we think may be what they think and some of them may be completely different. I'm curious to see, I haven't read these yet. So, I can't tell you what I've seen, but I'm very curious to see the perspectives and I'm sure they'll come from many different directions.
Baltin: How inspiring is it to have the perspective of kids and to see their enthusiasm?
Kravitz: I think it's beautiful. And I look back again, I'm talking about the past because I had such great lessons. My grandfather lived up well up into his 90s, and was a thinker, somebody who read, who studied, and up into his 90s, he hung out with a lot of young people of all ages because he wasn't the kind, you have your elders who have the perspective as I know everything, don't tell me anything. His whole thing, he purposely hung around young people because he wanted to continually learn and have a new perspective and his whole thing was, 'I'll tell you how I did it, I'll tell you what I think and when you come up with a better way you show me.' So, I keep myself very open because I want to continually learn. I want to continually have a new point of view and understanding.
Baltin: For you, what is the one song that you think of immediately comes to mind when you think of liberty and freedom?
Kravitz: Oh, wow. That's a hard one. There's so many. There's a song by Donny Hathaway, 'Someday We'll all be Free.' That's one of them. Of course, Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On,' Bob Marley 'Get Up Stand Up.' Those are three that I could think of that instantly put me in that in that place
Baltin: When you mentioned Donny Hathaway the first one that came to my mind was the title track to A Love Supreme.
Kravitz: I played that like two days ago. Bro, I play that song so much. That is a track that when I wake up in the morning and I'm feeling gratitude and I'm feeling like this is a new day that God has blessed me with, that is a record that I continually play to this day. It's on repeat a lot. It's interesting, there's no narrative to that track other than the repeat of "A Love Supreme." There's no lyrics, but the song says so much through the music. Still gives me energy and spirit, man.
Baltin: I interviewed a paleontologist, who was a former jazz musician, and he told the coolest story of being in Patagonia and excavating dinosaur bones while listening to The Doors' 'Riders on the Storm,' literally dragged dinosaur bones with horses while listening to that song. So, this prompted my new favorite question: where is your favorite place that you've either heard your music, or it's gotten back to you that people have listened to it?
Kravitz: I can't say that it's my favorite place or craziest because of what's going on but something that has been very impactful is I've had letters from soldiers who were fighting on the front line during Iraq and different things and were listening to 'Let Love Rule' and how that got them through that and how it kept their spirits alive in the middle of such drama and death and stress. You never think of that when you write your music. You do it for yourself, you're expressing yourself. Then when it becomes part of someone else's life, especially when it's in dealing with things like that or people tell me I had this terminal disease, or my wife or my mother was dying, and we were constantly playing this song and it got us through this period. That is very humbling because that's really what it's about. You are now in service of people and of their hearts and of their spirits. You're given the gift of being in service without even knowing that it was ever going to do that. So, for me, making music has always been about being in service of God, of humanity. So, when I hear people express these stories to me it's extremely humbling.
Baltin: A good remix can be like a cover where you hear someone else interpret your work. So, talk about how it invigorated you hearing these songs and why you decided to go with 'Let it Ride' to start with.
Kravitz: The groove of the song was inspired by when I used to hang out at clubs in New York. I was a kid, like1979, 1980. I used to get in these clubs and the music had that vibe of that track, so that track really lends itself to remixes more than anything on the record. Then I worked with my friend Bill Coleman and my cousin DJ Ruckus and they curated this whole thing, put people together and they did all these remixes. So, I started getting them in the emails, like when Kongs did his and I just thought they were great. They had the essence of those days in the club and it felt like it used to feel at that time. I love it and it's like you say, it's always interesting to hear somebody else do it.
Baltin: Why the return to Vegas?
Kravitz: My second residency. I never imagined doing Vegas. I got the invitation to do it last year and I loved it. I had a great time. I didn't know what the audiences would be like because it's a mix of your fans who come and they fly there, but there's also people that just are in Vegas and wonder what's going on tonight. I wasn't sure what the vibe was going to be, but it was a party in a celebration kind of way. It was a celebration of people coming together, and I really had a good time. And there's a certain luxury to staying in one place for two weeks and not having to travel.