Lenny Kravitz.

Lenny Kravitz has a unique charm and looks straight out of the 1970s with his brown leather jacket, turtleneck, paired with flared pants and gold rings around his fingers. Night Owl, rock icon lights up the dance floor with ravishing guitars and fiery sax solos that set fire blue electric light, his new album. The American singer, musician and songwriter’s last albums were all foreign; Black and white America (2011) noted Obama-era optimism and an American future beyond racial divides. Raise the vibration (2018) called for staying positive despite a country divided by Donald Trump’s mandate. Blue electric light takes a different direction and favors first-person narration. It’s a poignant testament to the personal and artistic quest Lenny Kravitz pursues after pushing the boundaries of rock. “Without Lenny Kravitz, there wouldn’t be Tyler the Creator (American rapper, editor’s note),” Jay-Z said.

Madame Figaro:Blue electric light marks the end of your longest period of silence between albums since your debut Let love reign In 1989 How were these new songs born?

Let love reign ten more albums followed, each dropping at a steady pace. Then I didn’t record for five years. Simply because I was in the necessary preparatory work for any artist. Blue electric light, is the summation of thirty years of hard work. It began to take shape during the epidemic. the isolation triggered a period of intense reflection and creativity in me.

Where have you been ?

In March 2020, at the start of the tour, I left for my home in the Bahamas with a small suitcase and weekend clothes. I wanted to recharge my batteries for a few days at the beach. But the tour dates were cancelled. I stayed there on the island of Eleuthera for the next two and a half years. With the money from my first record deal, I bought a piece of land there, where I lived for a long time in a trailer near the water. I still have it, but I also built a real house with a garden where I grow my own fruit and vegetables. I built a music studio on the side. I feel at home in this place. We don’t need anything, not a key, wallet, money… We live according to the rhythm of nature. When I’m in Los Angeles, New York or Paris, I’m a night owl, going to bed at dawn and waking up at noon, but in Eleuthera, after a week, my body gets used to it to follow the natural cycles. But at the end of the day, I’m a rocker, so I’ve often flouted these rules.

I mean, the songwriting was chaotic.

Very chaotic. During this period of apparent stillness, music flowed. Sometimes I hardly slept. I would wake up at all hours because I would hear melodies in my head and rush to write them down. I actually wrote three separate albums during that time. Blue electric light is the first one out but I’m working on the others. I posted the single first TK421: – which refers to soldiers Star Wars – because I played the album for Bono and The Edge from U2 and they insisted I release it first.

We have the impression that you have always been on a wave of success, but your first album, Let love reign It was, however, met with mixed reception when it was released. Why was it not immediately understood?

In the late 80s, America was in a hip-hop wave. I was like an alien landed on planet Earth. here was a 24-year-old black New Yorker singing and making rock using vintage recording techniques and retro gear. At the time, the rock charts were almost entirely made up of white artists. The voice I offered was neither black nor white. He stood at the crossroads and crossroads of the tribe. He was both cruel and soft as twilight. My second album Mama said (1991) , both scraped and tender, conflicted more with the codes. It went platinum and the rock and roll world was suddenly interested. Around that time I became close to Bruce Springsteen, Prince and Mick Jagger. However, I remember the corrosive and racist criticism. I read in an article. “If Lenny Kravitz was white, he’d be the next savior of rock and roll”…

The music on this album, very mixed, awakens your identity, and during the songs you get the impression that you see your whole life going by. Blue electric light Is it a musical sequel to your autobiography? Let love reign published in 2020

Yes! I grew up in New York in the 60s and 70s as a mixed-race kid; my mother, Roxy, was a black Bahamian, and my father, Cy, was a white Jew whose family came from Kiev. I stood out as much in the predominantly white neighborhoods of Manhattan as I did in the predominantly black neighborhoods of Brooklyn, where I often lived with my maternal grandparents while my parents worked. The latter had an apartment across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 82nd Street. I learned to tie my shoes on Madison Avenue surrounded by white people. But I often had the impression that I did not belong to any community, and that, without a doubt, was my fortune. I was the target of many attacks from older white men who saw my success as a threat. But the black media hasn’t always been generous either, and has been slow to make room for me. It’s all been frustrating at times, but I’m very pleased with how far we’ve come.