Lenny Kravitz Blasts Jann Wenner’s ‘Appalling’ Racism
Lenny Kravitz has been a name synonymous with rock god superstardom for decades, but in a new interview with Esquire pegged to his first new album and tour in years, the longtime music and style icon dug into the many contradictions of his career, and addressed the disparaging comments made by Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner.
Wenner said that no Black musicians were as articulate or “in the zeitgeist” as white ones. After he was kicked off the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation’s board of directors, Wenner issued a public apology, saying, “I totally understand the inflammatory nature of badly chosen words and deeply apologize and accept the consequences.”
Kravitz is biracial—his mother is actress Roxie Roker, who played Helen Willis on the groundbreaking sitcom The Jeffersons, and his father was a white TV news producer for NBC. The singer’s crunchy, pop and rock radio-ready sound put him at the top of the charts in the ’90s and early aughts, but he wasn’t given the props that similar-sounding acts were.