It was always hard to succinctly explain why Lenny Kravitz was my black rock chick big brother for 35 years. Long before God let my heathenish ,once oft- demonic ass know I was technically fam by the blood too.
…and here he goes encapsulating it in under 4 minutes and 50 seconds lol.
yeah…I’m a bit more militant[?], anarchistic[?](read=violent/reactionary) …baseline brimstone-ish about the whole thing…
But the real reason for all of that fire always being readily on display when warranted is because of Lenny Kravitz’s mean-pretty ass out there doing his thing as WHO he is the whole time, bitchers be damned.
Lenny Kravitz has always moved creatively like the eldest kid whose headstrong “I gotta be me, like God said to be-isms” broke crazy parents of their worst shit, giving the crazy siblings coming up behind them license to let their freak flags fly.
AngelBrynner
& contrary to popular “everybody loves Lenny” belief…he took flack for a good 28 of those 35 years in sectors closer to home than most of yall’d imagine.
But it happens like that sometimes. The ones who should be able to see your light the brightest and shout out your light the clearest can sometimes be the very ones trying to dog you publicly out of jealousy over the world noticing your shine sans anything to do with them or their estimation of you and your stique.
Even as the world was screaming his name at the top of its lungs, run of the mill, middle of the road if they were lucky, wannabe gansta, mercenary, mid motherfuckers of a certain Milieu always had snarky shit to say about him… without being able to play naan an instrument, read not a bit of music nor revel in anywhere near as much brazen birthday suit nakedity as him, nevermind write anywhere near the caliber he composes music Or lyrics.
Read his songs.
Dude’s albums have read like books the whole time.
& that was before all the malevolently chaste steal your girl mojo shit got flicked on (at will).
AngelBrynner
I had to literally punch other motherfuckers at the picnic in the face over disparaging his talented ass for not pandering for decades lol. If I go to a picnic now( sommayallknow), it’s solely to pick up a plate and bounce because iiii Stilll have beef, Especially now, over jokers suddenly tryin to front like they been part of the flock the whole damn time lol.
So, all that being said…it’s good to see him get this award.
I won’t bark over all the props he didn’t get from that above clutch of jokers.
Sweet, brimstoney lips, kinda-sorta.
But from this pov, MTV always came through giving him his propers.
…and to the wild black kid who’d been running around Cleveland with RHCP’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik blaring on repeat in her ears for years…that was then geared up for senior year in fishnet body suits, destroyed jeans and combat boots wishing a motherfucker Would to that thrashing beat writhing behind him on Are you Gonna Go My Way… utterly TKO’d by Cindy Blackman beating the fuck out of those drums right as she was about to lash out into this wild world…to that lanky, foal-like Black Rock chick who saw Him making EVERYTHING around her that was musically racist nonsense screech to a motherfucking halt-
…THAT representation, mattered.
And it mattered for ten years before I found out I was one of God’s weird, rondo, heart-led, lil creator kids too.
It even mattered in December 2020…when, after 40+ years of being solely an appreciator of rock music (and serial lava of men who could cook and play instruments)… I stopped being a punkass and picked up a guitar in Petaluma to start learning to play myself. & then a cello. And then a ukulele. And then sat down to a piano for real. All to the spiritual delight of my guardian angels, who’d been wielding stratocasters in the spirit from the get-go.
I still can’t technically “play” chords …but I can now definitely play “with” guitars and make them coherently howl how I’m feeling. I’m currently up in the trees on writerhead retreat in a hidden glen in Los Angeles, in a home full of left handed guitars that my still-shy neophyteness has full permission to play with. Because the home owner didn’t pick up a guitar to learn to play until in his 40s too and he gets it.
My guitar softly weeps in a harpsichordic waltzy rhythm when it doesn’t almost go zither-ish…Yeah I’m totally playing upside down…but if it was good enough for Jimi Hendrix, back up offa mah joy~because it’s authentically mines.
& I can match the lyrics I write for grievechronic to it… which is all I currently need right now so I authentically embrace it.
& I learned that watching LK.