Lenny Kravitz

vibration if you want to talk the man now. The backstory of most Lenny Kravitz albums is a rock and roll fantasy. Lenny rented a chateau in France to work in or he was living in his vintage Airstream trailer on the beach in the Bahamas, and he was recording in the studio that he'd built for himself in an island paradise. But making this latest album was a little different,

at least in the lead up. After ten albums going back almost thirty years to Let Love Rule in nine, as well as a handful of acting roles in Precious, The Hunger Games, and the TV series star Kravitz wasn't exactly sure where he was or maybe who he was musically. You know, his course early on had been charted by the music of the sixties and the seventies that he

grew up loving. Born in nineteen sixty four, Lenny Kravitz seems to have entered the world wearing bell bottoms in a fringed buckskin vest and has really never taken them off. But he's also a musical pollymath, and he plays nearly all the instruments on his album, and he's always shuffled style seventies, Philly soul, misty mountain hop, rock, stompers, roots, reggae, supersaturated beatles, melody like he was a Vegas dealer at

a blackjack to able early on. His style was firmly rooted between nineteen sixty seven the Summer of Love, in seventy seven the Summer of Punk, and he used a recording method is vintaged as the clothes he wore. But by the time he was covering the Guess Who's American Woman in nineteen nine for the soundtrack to Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me Well, he'd embraced modern technology

on singles like Flyaway. He was a decade or so into his career, and he'd already racked up enough songs for the Greatest Hits package, full of the sort of inescapable hits that Bachman Turner Overdrive or the guests who put on the radio in the nineteen seventies. That's not really the version of the seventies he was aiming for, But who cares. It ain't over till it's over stand By my woman, great songs, are you going to Go

My Way? And always on the run, completely different kind of great songs, and sometimes as a listener that's really all that matters. But leading up to Raise Vibration, his latest and eleventh album, Kravitz was getting pressure to work with outside producers and come up with a sound that

was more contemporary. Although he's recorded with Jay Z as far back as his two thousand and four album Baptism, and he worked with a Vicci on a remix of super Love from his eleven album Black and White, America, contemporary has never exactly been Lenny Kravitz's lane, and so he found himself, if not at the crossroads and a kind of artistic traffic jam, stuck because I can play many different styles, and I like so many different genres of music. I wasn't really clear on where it was.

I wanted to go. I can go here, I can go there, I can go here, and I was thinking too much. But it was good because I've never really done that. So it was really good because what it led to was me letting go of every thought that

I had and just stopping. And when I did that and I got quiet, I began to wake up in the middle of the night with songs in my head, and that, to me, is the most beautiful way because it takes me my thought process, my ego, whatever is there, takes it out of it and it's just pure channeling. And I dream tunes all the time, but I've never dreamt a whole album. So when when you say you dreamt this whole album, it was coming to you one song at a time, but one song at a time.

And I would wake up and put the melody that I'm hearing on in my head on a on a recorder, or I grabbed the guitar in the bedroom and put the chords down and hum whatever the melody is, or recite whatever words it is that I was hearing and then you would studio and work on the track, work on it for a week, work on it for two weeks, with you know whatever, however long it took me to put things together, because I'm playing all the instruments and

I'm doing all the orchestrations and and so forth. So everything is happening one at a time, and then that song would sort of get finished, and then here comes another one. Dreaming tunes and then waking up and recording them. You know, if you were writing a novel about a rock star and you came up with a character like

Lenny Kravitz, it would be a pretty hard sell. You'd probably get a stern talking to from your editor along the lines of, well, this is fascinating, and the parts about dating the Brazilian supermodel and Tom Cruise's ex wife, those are definitely a lot of fun, but it's really not very believable. Could you come up with something a little more real a stick, because Kravitz is life and accomplishments defy most of the way we understand the world works,

and sometimes the laws of space and time. Some details chosen more or less at random. He was born in New York City to a black mother and a white father. His mom, Roxy Roger, was an actress. His dad, Si Kravitz, was a former Green Beret who, after serving in the Korean War, became a TV producer with a sideline as a jazz promoter and a music producer. Lenny Kravitz grew up with artists and musicians in and out of his house,

including Duke Gallington and Miles Davis. At age six, he saw James Brown at the Apollo, and around the same time he saw the Jackson five at Madison Square Garden. Photos from this era show a young Lenny with a peace sign painted on his forehead like a third eye in our rock and roll novel, we'd call that foreshadowing.

By age ten, he was living in Los Angeles because his mom had gotten cast on the sitcom The Jefferson's Playing Half with a New a racial couple Apart, Kravitz has said was modeled to some degree on her own life. During this time, Lenny joined the California Boys Choir and performed classical music, sometimes with the Metropolitan Opera, but by the time he was a teenager, he was deep into

rock and roll. In attending Beverly Hills High School, although he really wouldn't become friends with the other guitar obsessed by racial kid in his class, Saul Hudson, until later when Saul was known as Slash and playing with guns and roses. At twenty three, in Kravitz got married in Las Vegas to Lisa Bonet, then par laying her role in the number one television show in America, The Cosby Show in her own series A Different World. Their daughter, Zoe,

was born a year later. During this time, Lenny was recording his music on his own, and after being rejected by labels for not sounding black enough for white enough, he was signed in ninety nine by virgin The story goes that he played five minutes of his music and the A and R person he was meeting with left the room came back with another executive who promptly declared that Kravitz was Prince meets John Lennon and signed him.

Kravitz's debut, let Love Rule, came out that same year, and it established the blueprint he follow Over the next decade. He recorded almost everything himself and borrowed from the heroes of the nineteen sixties and seventies without apology, creating a world where John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix were locked arm in arm with Bob Marley and the Commodores. Critics didn't give him much slack when it came to his retro look and sound, but other artists and audiences were more accepting.

When Let Love Rule came out, Prince phoned Kravitz out of the blue to connect, and Kravitz found himself opening for Tom Petty, David Bowie, and Bob Dylan, who brought him on stage at one point to sing Maggie's Farm. I was scared shitless, Kravitz remembered earlier this year, I didn't know the words in Kravitz hit number two with

the soulful breakup ballot. It Ain't over till It's over from Mama, said, a second album charged by the dissolution of his marriage by with Kravitz writing high on the title track from his third album, a zip line rocker called are You Going to Go My Way? The opening act on his European tour was none other than Robert Plant, who dubbed Lenny Kravitz the new King of cock Rock. By the way Kravitz says, he and guitarist Craig Ross came up with are you going to go My Way?

In five minutes at the end of a recording session while someone else was waiting to get into the studio. Anyway, you see what I mean about our rock and roll novel not seeming particularly realistic. And we have not even gotten to the part about his homes in the Bahamas and ill or the Manhattan apartment he sold for reported fifteen million dollars, or his engagement to Victoria's secret model Adriana Lima, or the statue of Miles Davis he has in his Paris home, which is a four story town

house originally built to be the U S Embassy. Or the bit about him being a distant cousin of NBC weather man Oul Broker, or the half of a joint that he smoked with Mick Jagger and kept as a talisman for about a year until he ran out of weed and smoked the rest of it. Honestly, we've barely scratched the surface of all the ways in which Lenny

Kravitz is some sort of platonic ideal of a rock star. Kravitz, who rose to fame in the early nineties era of grunge and gangster rap was ridiculed for just this, and it's worth asking why. Yeah, he borrowed wholesale from the music of the past with a clear love of led Zeppelin, and he went on stage looking like he was in costume. But then again, so did Jack White of the White Stripes.

In the eight eighties and early nineties, is Kravitz was weaving the music of his childhood into his own albums. Rappers were building their sounds around samples of George Clinton Zapp or Stevie Wonder, and Kravitz may or may not have been thinking about just this when he took a public Enemy instrumental itself made from a James Brown sample, added some synthesizers, and turned it into Madonna's Justify My Love. Oh yeah, I understand grunge. Gangster rapped the White Stripes.

They're a little more inventive. They have a little more to tell us about the world than Lenny Kravitz escapism. But I can't remember the last time rock and roll pop music didn't include escapism. And as for Lenny Kravitz being dedicated to vintage sounds, listen to what goes around comes around from Mama said today, and it sounds like a model for Farrell Williams. My pockets now, my money is gone, my face and no thanks thanks. Cravitz is

still playing around with the music of the past. It's Enough from Raised Vibration is a protest song laced with conspiracy theory undertones, and it uses a Curtis Mayfield groove face. Because of this face and one of the most interesting songs on the new album, Johnny Cash starts off with

some Ernie Eisley guitar. Cravitz talk with me about his encounter with Johnny and June Carter Cash at Rick Rubin's house, and about his phone calls with Prince and Bill Clinton, and about the album he has waiting in the wings, which has guest appearances from George Clinton, James Brown, saxophonist Maceo Parker and other greats. So let's join Lenny Kravitz in his dream world. Well, Lenny Kravitz, welcome to the

inside the studio. Thank you. One of the first tracks that we heard from this new album was Low And it's interesting that the video for that you did with John Baptiste, famed fashion photographer, great video director, someone you've worked with in the past, and it begins it's just a dark room with you on the drums. And I was interested by that because that's sometimes how the recording process starts for you think that that's very good. I

didn't think of that. I was in past, and he wanted to hear the album M so I invited him over to here the record, and when Low came on, he kept saying, play that again, playing it again, play it again. And I had no idea that he'd want to make a video because he doesn't really make videos that much anymore. It's very special when he does. But he kept listening to it, and there's a lot of

orchestration on Low. There's you know, there's two guitars, there's base, there's mini mooved based, there's drums, there's percussion all over the place. There's an orchestra, there's horn arrangements. But he kept focusing on the drumbeat and it pulled him in

and he just started riffing on this idea. It's like, you should do a video, and I just want to see you on the drums, black room, black clothes, black drums, and just have it be really sparse and empty and elegant, and forget any storyline and sets and location, very stripped down and it worked. I mean, I love it. It is one of those videos that changes how you hear things a little bit, but it does. But no, but

that was one of his points. He said that when the video was edited and he watched it it comments people were giving him where that they heard the music differently. Yeah, suddenly it sounds as stripped down as that video looks exactly. It's you know, the power of sight, right of an image. So let's stick with this just for one more second, because it's not just you in this video alone in

this room against the dark setting. There's one other person. Yes, and she's a great drummer that just graduated from Berkeley

School of Music named Jazz. And I met her through a friend of mine who is from the Bahamas, who lives in the Bahamas, who's going to Berkeley School of Music and knew her and he had shown me footage of her playing at one point, and when Jamatis and I were in my kitchen in Paris talking about the video, we are comming with this idea that'd be really cool to have a female energy in the video, and that she would appear and disappear and appear and it becomes

this sort of conversation. I guess it is a conversation. It also struck me, I mean, it felt like this moment of gender fluidity because she's sometimes articulating the vocals where she's singing is she's yeah, she's doing what I'm doing exactly. There's no difference between you and her. Is part of what part of the message of the same clothes, and but she's beautiful and she's just an amazing drummer, and um, yeah, it came out really good. Every element

was right right. I want to stick with the videos just for another second, because it's enough. Another one of the early tracks from this record that we heard. The video comes with a content warning. You're about to see some very graphic images because there's a lot of news footage in this video. This is a pro test song with what sounded to me like almost a Curtis Mayfield kind of groove Curtis Mayfield vibe to it. Tell me about this that song. It's enough. Actually, I recorded that

song twice in the process. When I first recorded it, it came out very punk. Really, it's almost like a Ramans track. I don't like to hear that I still have it and I will release it at some point, like B side of something or just let it out because it's really cool. But I played it for my daughter when she came out of the Bahamas, and she's like, mm hmmm, I don't know. No, not not about the because she loves the Ramones, but she just thought that it wasn't right for that song or for me. I

don't know, and she just said, I don't know. I just she said, I just it should be a little more like this or like that. And so I didn't think much about it after that, and then I really started thinking of about it. I was like mm hmm. And then the idea came in again, one of these dreams, and I completely recut the tune. But the point was, and when you recuted, did you build it around the groove? I builded around the groove that's on the record that

you hear. But what's interesting in what works better than it did before, which I understand what she was saying, was that I took it down. I pulled it in. I made it very sparse and funky. But when I'm singing the lyrics, they're very quiet, they're smooth. There's space between each sentence, and therefore you hear the message stronger than when I was giving it to you yelling. So that's what it was. Let's talk about the message of this song. I mean, there are a lot of things

that war comes up. Pharmaceutical companies pushing their wares on us comes up in this song. At one point you mentioned chem trails in the sky. There are a lot of different things that you go through, all with the idea that it's enough. You reference that saying attributed to Jimi Hendrix, when the power of love overcomes the love of power, then we'll know peace. That's that's referenced in the Yeah have a sent This that's someone says the

same thing. I know, looking at the video, all the things that we see as we see that, you can change that video every week exactly. I haven't seen it since it came out, but I'm sure it's like already. Like I mean, there's things that are obviously still happening, but again, you could refeed that thing. And and that's what I want to ask you, is this you reacting to the news of the day. Are we so inundated with it? Is that the feeling it's enough or it's

enough of what's going on. It's enough of that. It's enough of all that stuff, the negativity, the destruction of ourselves and our planet, how we treat each other. It's a shame. It really is a shame we're living in. We've always been living in. That's where I want to use challenging times. There's always issues, but we're getting to a point now where it's about to blow. Feels like things are on fin you know, it's about to blow.

Will we can we turn around? You know? Will we raise our consciousness, raise our vibration and really realize what's important? And when you have governments that are operating on greed and power, money and corporations, and it's a lot, man. You know. One thing that struck me was you see some footage of the neo Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia in this video, and I flashed on a song from a few years ago, the title track of your album

Black and White. Yeah, blackline America, Yeah, Black and White America, where you're talking about maybe we've reached a point where the future has come around and we've found that we finally have common ground. And now it's a number of years later, and it doesn't feel that way so much, and really interesting how it just did a back flip, you know, and a lot of that is obviously a reaction to that it was moving forward, and there's a lot of people that feel that enough of this and

it does amaze me how backwards we've gone. It's really surreal and a trip. You're someone who born in the sixties, came of age in the seventies, and had interracial parents, so which is certainly something that comes up in that song in Black and White America. You actually talk about your parents falling in love getting married. Absolutely, I mean they had the inspiration for that song as well as

I mean, obviously the history of in our nation. But but at the point that they fell in love and got married in the sixties, being in danger, just walking down exactly, they dealt with a lot of issues and hate and and then it's just ironic that my mom ends up on a television show, you know, you know, historic sitcom The Jefferson's where she played basically, I mean, she didn't play herself, but the character Helen Willis was essentially her married black woman married to a white man

in New York City. Yeah, so we've been carrying this torch right, you know, you know, as someone who's about the same age as you are, we've seen these reactionary forces. We've lived through this before because the whatever progress was made in the sixties or seventies perhaps was set back or slowed down by Reagan's America. What's you're feeling about where we're at now? I mean, we're going to get to the title of the record, the title track and

the record ray's vibration in just a second. You've already brought it up. But are you part of the resistance? Do you feel that way as a musician, as an artist? You know, when there's a march, do you want to get out on the street that I do? Yeah, But I'm all about love. So it doesn't matter who, what country, where, who this president, that president, this Prime minister, this king, this whoever. If they're not operating from a place of love and concern for the people, then I'm not down

with that. And that's all over the world. We can talk about this country, this president, this thing. It's everywhere, it's everywhere, and it just seems that we're losing our minds more and more each year. He's getting more ridiculous, and I don't understand it as people were living in this time where the technology and the social media has really done a number on us, where we should be paying attention to our lives, ourselves and what's really going on.

We're absorbed in the media and where absorbed with our narcissism, and we're absorbed with just being in this other reality. And when you're saying you were absorbed in the media, I just want people to know your holding up your your hand as though though you're looking into your phone, so you're you're really talking about being lost in our screens. Absolutely,

and you know that's part of the plan. But we've got to get our heads out of wherever they may be and they look at ourselves and what's going on. All right, Hold up, what do you mean that's part of the plan? What do you I don't think it's just I think there's some design to all this. I mean, I think they like us to be in there. You think there's like look over here, look over here. You think there's almost an organized whether it's intention or not,

an organized culture of distraction. There's there's a lot of that. Yeah, who benefits from that? Those folks, very small group of folks. No, but it's like you know, I mean, you can get into all the conspiracy stuff. Well, I mean, you got a song where you mentioned the Chemp trail, so I gotta ask you, are you into that stuff? I mean, I'm fascinated by a lot of this stuff. There's so many questions and we don't have all the answers. No, but there's a lot of things going on that needs

some explaining. Whether we'll ever get the answers or not, I don't know. But at the end of the day, with all this going on, to get back to I choose to remain optimistic, and I choose to choose the path of love, and that's the way I was raised. I can't really help it. I mean, this is something you've been talking about. We're gonna celebrate the thirtieth anniversary and let love rule next year. So this is something you've been going on about for thirty years. I can't

believe it's thirty years coming man. Wow. Yeah, I mean from let level to raise vibration. That's bad. They're kind of book ends. It's the same message, just said in a different way, and time has changed things. But what's interesting is forget even my records. We won't even reference my record, a record by Marvin Gaye. What's going on? It sounds like it was written yesterday. I had it on recently, as it's like we're right there. It doesn't just sound like it was written yesterday to do a

certain itstand. It sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday as well, because we've we've returned to some of those sounds. And I want to ask you something. Do you ever feel like you didn't get a fair shake your music? You took a little bit of stick about being a revivalist, right, being interested into things you were

interested in retro that was a very big word. Yeah, And at the same time, late eighties in the world of hip hop, if you go back to an old record and sample it, just take the music manipulated, which one could say you might do by loving old records and writing new songs the way that you were. But if you go back to old music and sample it, you're celebrated. But if you're Lenny Kravitz, you're retro good. You know, it all comes around. It's like I've always

been original and written my own music. When I had my influences. No, man, I'm trying to get you angry. You are Love Rule, but no more than I mean, look at the Stones, you look at Zeppelin. I mean, we could go deep into that talking about other artists who drew very direct into ration from their sources even more than I did, you know what I mean. But any musician, it's all the things that you grew up on, all the education you've had mixed up together and in

a stew and it comes out. You bring it out your own way, you know. But still, I want to tell you somebody who heard those records coming out at the time, that that retro idea did shape and color the way that I interacted with them. So when I go back to Let Love Rule right now and I hear Mr. Cab Driver, here's the song that when I heard it almost thirty years ago, I was like, oh, yeah, you know, the bass is out front, this guy Revolver,

he loves Revolver. And you know what, Now I hear it and I think, oh, yeah, the bass is out front, there's some choppy guitar behind dirty mind, this guy loves Prince. But that's not the way I heard it at the time, right right, It is true though, Right, that was a crucial record for you What Dirty Mind? Absolutely big one, big one for me. Yeah. Yeah, and that record let Love Rule I've heard you talk about this came out and you get a phone call from Prince, right I did.

He called me after heard the record and wanted to meet me, and I met him. Was in l A at the time. I met him at some sound stage I forget where it was, somewhere maybe in burb banger And that started our relationship and we were friends up, you know, from then to the end. When you got a call from Prince back then, did the phone just rang and you heard a voice and it was like, yeah, it's Prince you know, and it's like I never got the number from It was kind of like when Bill

Clinton called me. It was like I was like, how did you get my number? Let me just put it was kind of like when Bill Clinton. Well it's by the way, Bill Clinton, I understand where he could get the number. That's what I'm saying, but I thought to say it. The first time he called, I was like hello, um, but yeah, Prince called me, and yeah, it was really beautiful that he was supportive and basically saying like, Okay,

we're brothers, that's meet up. Yeah, he was. I mean in high school, listening to that Dirty Mind record was so much for me. Yeah, I used to listen to in high school and I had to jump up when head came on to turn it down so my mom wouldn't hear the lyrics the track right. Amazing? Yeah, do you do the same thing now for other artists who you might hear a kinstry, Like when you hear a Greta Van Fleet or a Curtis Harden who's opening for you on tour. Here's somebody else who draws on music

that you've drawn on. Do you pick up the phone and tell them, Hey, man, I know where you're coming from. I know some of what's going to happen. Not so much, but like in certain cases, I'll invite people to come play with me, and they'll come and do some gigs with us and open up with me. Curtis and I became friendly on the tour. He did a bunch of dates in Europe with me. Gary Clark Jr. And for other people, that is a very soulful and stylish grouping. Yeah, yeah,

Gary is amazing. He blessed us and was special guests for several shows. Um, it's great to hear music that is organic, people are actually playing instruments. I did. We've got to Raise Gracia raised vibration. You brought up the idea of the title track from this record, We've got to Raise our vibration raising. You mentioned Jesus, you mentioned Gandhi, you mentioned dr king in the song. Tell me a

little bit about the song. It's about going to that level and raising our vibration and acting on peace non violence. And it ends as you heard the end of the record. It ends with these Native American singers and drummers chanting at the end, which makes even more powerful. Where did that come from? Was that music that you saw people performing. I've always been into that, and actually my great grandmother was full blood Cherokee on my mom's side of the family.

I have a friend, Chris Summer, who I made a record on in ninety eight, seven or eight called Street Ferry. It's really cool I made at the same time I made five, I made Creeze record in my record in a compass point in NASA at the same time. She grew up on a reservation. She's been the one who's really educated me on on that music. And so I was in l A and I was speaking to her and I said, I hear this sound for this song, and she found the players and for me and I

flew them over. And the first intention was to put them on the song in the middle of the song, while in the break it was so pure on its own that anytime they did it in the track, it's almost like you've changed channels, like you're you're in a different song entirely that moment. So instead of putting them in the track, I waited till the end of the song and then fade them in at the end and the chat for a while coda and added message, Yeah

it was so it was really beautiful. Yeah, And the track is as far as it just starts with a guitar and a vocal for like a while before the drums kicking. Yeah. You talked a little bit about letting love rule, you know, the idea that that you've carried forth as a program throughout your work. And I want to ask you about this song, Johnny Cash, which isn't necessarily about not not you know, one way, but it's about something that happened. It's about a feeling Johnny Cash

left me with. In one way of describing this song is about wanting to find someone who looks at you or treat you the way June Carter treated Johnny right. Well, basically, I was singing to somebody that I was having a very deep break up, and I'm telling them in this song how I need them. I wish it wasn't going to hand, and I'm asking for their comfort. So shoot

me writing this song. I wake up with this song in my head, and I go to the studio and I'm just laying on the thunder Roads and I'm playing the chords and I'm singing the melody. I didn't have any words, but the only words that were coming out of my mouth it was holding me like Johnny Cash, which is the first line of the hook. And I'm sitting there singing this hold me like Johnny and I'm thinking to myself, what am I talk? What hold me

like Johnny Cash? What does that mean? And so as the words kept sort of streaming out of me and I wrote more words, I realized I was like, oh, this is serious. So basically, the day my mother died, I was in the hospital. It was in Los Angeles at the time, and I knew she had maybe just a few days left. But I was in the hospital all day on this particular day, and I took a break to go home to shower and get some food,

and I was going to go back. At the time, I was living at Rick Ruben's house in l A. I lived with Rick for several years. That was my spot in l A. He gave me a little wing of the house and very sweet And at that particular time, Johnny Cash was making the Acoustic record, so he was living at the house as well. So I drove from the hospital. I get to the house, I get the

phone call that my mom had passed. I was shocked because I didn't know what was gonna happen like that, and I want to be there, and I'm standing at the bottom of the stairs and I'm sure I looked shocked and out of it, and Johnny and June were coming down the stairs to go out, and I'm sure Johnny could see that something was wrong with me, so he said, Lenny, Hey, what's what's going on? How are you? And I said, my mom just died. And the two of them came down the stairs and just grabbed me

and held me really tightly and consoled me. They were comforting me, They were telling me all of these things and saying very beautiful, supportive things. It was a really human, beautiful moment because we weren't close like that. We were living in the same house. Hi, good morning, how are you good afternoon? Nice to see you. We never got into like a real deep conversation because we were always

coming and going and having things to do. But they took ten minutes whatever it was and just sat there with me. And so the chorus says, told me, like Johnny Cash when I lost my mother, whisper in my ear, just like June Carter, and now I fight these tears that I hid. Just hold me tight for the rest of my life. So obviously, the last time I was comforted on a level like that was the time that Johnny Cash and June Carter held me when my mom died.

And that feeling is what I was looking for from this person, and that was the way to tell the story. And it's also quite surreal that the moment that my mother dies, there's nobody around, there's nobody in my family. I'm by myself and the only people that are there our Johnny Cash and June Carter. That's surreal, right, so and and and they had such a powerful connection. The two of them were one, you know, and you see

that when people are that close. I mean they when one passed the next one, it wasn't too far behind, but they were one. It was beautiful to see. And they were just beautiful people. And I I had that moment. They were there at a very crucial moment and did what they felt they should do, and it was the exact thing that I needed. Yeah, I want to circle

back to the genesis point of this record. We were talking about before you knew what direction to go in, or you would open yourself up to going in whatever direction you would. I know you've talked a little bit about hearing from other people that you should, well maybe work with this producer, that producer. What were people wanting out of They want you to be quote unquote relevant contemporary. But what's that sound like? Being in fashion to what's

going on? That would mean I guess me adopting you know, like whatever is on the radio. So first, I mean, so making some sort of pop dance or trap record, what like yea perhaps right? Yeah, which could be an interesting challenge, just as an artic collaboration. It's not a record that I would make. I'm going to make what I make. But there were lots of opinions, and so that was part of the confusion. But it was, as

I said, it was an interesting process. It's interesting. It could be interesting to try to just do it to see what happens, you know, and I did, you did, I actually did with a few folks, just to be open, open to the process. Yeah, because people are saying, you know, you gotta drop your ego. And it was never about ego. It was about this is how I work. When a painter is painting is painting, nobody says, well, why don't you get a few other people involved here and let

them throw some colors on there. And there aren't a lot of people like you who were making their records essentially by themselves. I mean most people, whether they're in a band making rock music or whether they're making pop music or working in a team of collaborators. And there aren't a lot of people in the music business who have the artistic freedom to say, well, I'd like to do it the way I'd like to do it. Well, I always had from day one. I had creative control,

that was in my contract from day one. But people were just saying, and you make it so hard on yourself. You do everything, Why don't you just do this make it easier? And so I tried it, and I actually did some really cool things with one group of guys. If you're not able to say who they were, can you tell us what the vibe was, what the sound was. It's hard to say what it was, which is different.

But I made some really good friends from these two particular people, and I'm sure we're gonna put out some of that stuff because it was cool. But it wasn't what this record should be. It's something else. But I knew I had a record to make and statements to make and sounds to make that weren't that okay. So so far we've heard about this collaboration and uh, a punky Ramoncy version of It's enough. So what else is in the vault? Lanning? If we got thirty years of

stuff in the vault? What's in there? I'm not sure. One day I'll go through it and see what's there for me. I'm always looking forward the next records, not in the eight percent done. So I'm my head's in that thing now? Is this the record I've heard about a little about where you've collaborated with different people across the years and put these recordings together. It's a very funky, greasy, raw,

very raw. Who else? Who else is involved in these fus far George Clinton, Alan Tussa God rest his soul, Kenny Barrel, legendary jazz guitarist, Bill Summers who was the percussionist for Herbie Hancock and the head Hunters, Fred Wesley, trombonist for James Brown and others. Maceio Parker, saxophonist for James Brown, Big Black the percussionist too. I don't know if you ever saw soul power from the Muhammad Ali he's the discussionist. Did that that big solo in the

middle of the concert. Yeah, there's some very cool eclectic You're in a different world with each one of these people's missing. How do we get this out of you? I have a little mixing to do, I have maybe a vocal to do, and I have a few more collaborations. All right, I'm innsseling vacation. You gotta get this done. Wenny, Thank you for being thank you for having me. Inside the Studio is an I Heart Radio original podcast created by Chris Peterson. This episode was written and hosted by

me Joe Leavy. Our executive producer is Sandy Smallens for audiation, and our mixer is Matt Noble. We'd like to give a big thanks to Lenny Kravitz and BMG Records, and you can follow Inside the Studio on I heart Radio or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.