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My Mother Always Told Me To Embrace Both Sides Of My Background. And She Also Taught Me One Very Useful Thing When I Was Going To First Grade. She Said, "you're Bahamian And African-american On One Side, And Russian-jewish On The Other. You're No More One Than The Other, And It's Beautiful That You Have All This. It Makes Your Life All The More Rich. But Society Will See You Only As Black."

-Lenny Kravitz

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My Mother Always Told

Lenny Kravitz

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My Mother Always Told Me To Embrace Both Sides Of My Background. And She Also Taught Me One Very Useful Thing When I Was Going To First Grade. She Said, "you're Bahamian And African-american On One Side, And Russian-jewish On The Other. You're No More One Than The Other, And It's Beautiful That You Have All This. It Makes Your Life All The More Rich. But Society Will See You Only As Black."

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African American

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I Knew Slash In High School, But Not Very Well. Just Knew Him As This Kid That Used To Hang Out In The Hallway. Pretty Much Looked Then The Way He Does Now.

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You Can't Even Sing Or Play An Instrument, So You Just Scream Instead. You're Living For An Image, So You Got Five Hundred Women In Your Bed.

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I Find Cooking To Be The One Thing That Relaxes Me. I Don't Get To Do It Often . . .

It Doesn't Take A Lot To Get Me Motivated. I'm A Studio Rat. When I Was In High School And I Would Walk Into A Recording Studio, It Felt Like This Magical Place, This Temple, This Womb That I Could Escape Into.

I Used To Do Plays And Some Television Commercials When I Was Younger. I Guess My Mom's Being An Actress Got Me Interested In That, But Music Definitely Took Its Place.

Television Commercials

I Haven't Thought About Making A Music Film, But If I Did, That Would Be A Very Interesting Idea.

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Confusion Makes People Uncomfortable. They Can't Put Their Finger On Me.

There's Definitely An Old School Element To My Music, But I Also Think It's Modern.

I've Been Compared To Hundreds Of Artists, Which Just Goes To Show You That I'm Not Any One Thing At All.

You Never Know Where You're Going To Find A Great Actor.

I'm Half Jewish, I'm Half Black, I Look In-between. I Dress Funny. I Play All These Different Styles Of Music On One Record. It's Like, What Is He Doing?

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People See My Photos And Think I Labor Over My Image And I'm This Cool, Brooding Artist. But I'm Just Having Fun With It.

A Lot Of People Don't Listen To The Lyrics, Really.

I'm Looking Forward To Going Out At The Concert With A Clear Head, With A Clear Mind, With A Clear Spirit And Experiencing Whatever It Is. It's Great.

There's Nothing More That We Love Than Having A Close, Personal, Open Relationship, And I Believe That's What God Wants.

The Most Important Thing For Me Is The Moment, Going From One Thing To The Next And Hitting All The Different Levels And Different Points That Make The Whole What It Is.

I Don't Play The Tuba.

I Never Sit Down To Write. When I'm Moved, I Do It. I Just Wait For It To Come. You Just Hear It. I Can't Really Describe Writing. It's In My Head. I Don't Think About The Styles. I Write Whatever Comes Out And I Use Whatever Kind Of Instrumentation Works For Those Songs...a Lot Of People Don't Listen To The Lyrics, Really. A Lot Of People Pretty Much Only Listen To The Chorus.

I've Always Been Into Films. I've Been Offered Lots Of Films But They've Always Been These Very Stereotypical Roles. They Wanted Me To Play Some Gangster Or Street Guy, Or Pimp, Drug Addict.

I'm Experiencing The Mood To Go Out And Share The Music. I Don't Look At These Concerts As A Platform For People To Watch Me, Look At Me. No, A Tour Is About An Interaction. A Thing, Myself, A Band, And The People Who Support What I Do And Enjoy What I Do.

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I Found It A Really Refreshing Change Of Pace To Suddenly Be Completely Directed. It Was A Type Of Collaboration That I Don't Normally Have.

The Story That I Wanna Tell Is Pretty Much About The Way I Grew Up. Being Bi-racial, Growing Up In A Big City And Being An Artist.

I Don't Think About The Styles. I Write Whatever Comes Out And I Use Whatever Kind Of Instrumentation Works For Those Songs.

They Think I'm Being Serious When Actually I'm A Very Big Clown. But You Have To Know Me To See That. I'm Constantly Cracking Up And Cracking Everybody Else Around Me Up.

I'm Not One Of Those Artists Who Refuses To Play Their Hits. I Find That Ridiculous. Hits Are A Blessing.

The Image That The Public Gets Is Whatever They Perceive It To Be. Everybody Has An Opinion, Everybody Has Their Own Vision, So I Don't Know What My Public Image Is. I Have No Idea.

Eleutheria, The Fire Is Burning. Eleutheria, The Tables Are Turning.

Good Design Is Being Able To Put A $100,000 Thing Next To A $20 Thing. If It Looks Right And It Works Then It Works. It Doesn't Have To Be Expensive; It's All About The High Meets Low For Me.

We've Always Just Gotten Up There And Played. We Don't Have Any Dancers, We Don't Have All That Stuff Going On, We Just Get Up There And Play.

After Listening To "machine Gun" I Have To Take A Nap.

Mothers Love You To The End, And She Didn't Want To Hold Me Back From My Livelihood. So I Left For A Month And Called Her Every Couple Of Days. I Came Home And She Died 24 Hours Later.

I Just Need To Know That I Did The Very Best I Could And That I Was True To Myself.

Let's Look At Human Interactions. I Really Believe That There Is A Way For Us To Settle Disputes Nonviolently, Using Our Minds, Using All Of That Was Given To Us.

When I Was A Kid And I Bought A Record, I Ripped That Thing Open, I Wanted To Know Who Was Playing What, What Studio It Was Cut At, Who Was The String Arranger, Who Was The Engineer.

I Didn't Really Listen To Rock 'n' Roll Until I Moved To La. We Would Ditch School, Go Get High, Put On Zeppelin Iv And Just Bug Out.

I Started Out Making Furniture Because I Couldn't Find Certain Things, And Then I Really Got Into It.

If You Look At The Guys In The '70s, Like Led Zeppelin, They Had Bigger Planes Than We Do, They Had More Money. But They Weren't Singing About It.

We're Getting So Pulled In By Computers And Technology, And Our Kids Have Their Face In The Computers All Day. The Human Relationship Is Being Diminished By This.

God Is Love And If You Are Ready, He Always Is.

You Need To Open Up So That More Comes Through. And You Can Just Feel That When Your Ego Is Not In The Way And When You're Letting It Be What It Wants To Be. You Have To Let It Be What It Wants To Be As Opposed To What You Think It Should Be.

I Want To Get Away, I Want To Fly Away. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

One Musician Listens To Another Musician, And You Get Inspired And Then You Do Your Thing, But It's Yours.

Music, For Me, Is Completely Self-indulgent. I Write It, I Play The Instruments, I Arrange It, I Produce It. It's All About Me - As It Should Be.

Love , Creativity, And Opportunity Is In The Air. Take It In And Do Your Thing.

There Are So Many People That Don't Believe In Themselves And Don't Have Faith.

Where I'm At In Life, The Women Have Got To Come With Something Else, Not Just The Body, But The Mind And Spirit. It Usually Trips Them Out, But That's The Way It's Going To Be. I'm Looking At The Big Picture.

I Do My Best To Try To Keep God With Me On A Personal Level. It's My Belief That God Really Wants A Personal Relationship With Us.

If You Go To Japan, They're Still Buying Vinyl, And They Want The Education. They Know Who's Playing On What Tracks From The '60s And The '70s - Who The Guitar Player Is, Who The Drummer Is, Who The Producer Was, What Studio It Was Recorded In. That's How I Grew Up Listening To Music. We Bought Albums. We Read The Liner Notes. It Was Important To Know The Whole History Behind It.

The Image Is An Image.

There's Certain Things In Life That I Love. One Is Architecture. And Music, Culture, Food, People. New Orleans Has All Of That.

My Dream Is To Become A Farmer. Just A Bohemian Guy Pulling Up His Own Sweet Potatoes For Dinner.

My Mother's Side Of The Family Is From The Bahamas, And I Spent Time There On And Off When I Was Growing Up. It's The Place Where I Feel At Peace.

Keeping Grounded And Keeping Focused And Keeping Calm And Thankful, That Comes From God.

If You Listen To A Lot Of Old Funk Records, The Drums Are Really Small. But You Don't Perceive It Like That Because The Groove Is So Heavy.

When I Stopped Trying To Write Songs, That's When I'm Able To Begin Writing Songs. You Have To Just Use Your Life, And The Things Around You For Your Inspiration.

I Knew What I Wanted To Do From The Time I Was 5.

When I Make Music, I Play It, I Produce It, I Write It. It's A Very Self-centered Thing, Not In A Negative Way. But I Primarily Work By Myself, That's My Process. When I'm Acting, I'm There To Serve The Director And The Character. I'm Here To Give You What You Need. Communicate That To Me And I Will Do What I Need To Do To Get That. So That's What It's About.

If You Ask A Hundred People, They All Give You Different Answers.

You're Never Promised Your Next Breath.

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If I Had To Associate Myself With One Song, It Would Probably Be Let Love Rule. It's So Simple And To The Point. It Speaks For Itself.

One Day We're Going To Watch People Fight To The Death, Like Roman Times. Instead Of Being In A Coliseum, We're Going To Watch It On Tv.

It's Like A Dream To Come To Spain And Stay For A Couple Of Years And Get Somebody To Teach Me Spanish Music.

I Bought [john Lennon's] 'plastic Ono Band,' And I Listened To It Over And Over For Months. It's A Monumental Work Of Genius.

If You Heard My Records And No One Told You, I Don't Think You'd Know Whether It's A Band Or One Guy.

I'm More Hungry Now Than I Was 11 Years Ago. Which Is Great Because I See A Lot Of Artists That Have Been Out For A Long Period Of Time. They Get Kind Of Fat.

I Always Read The Capitol As F—ked Up Pansexuality, Everybody Is Doing Everybody. Back To Greek And Roman Times! It’s All Happening.

Being Free Is A State Of Mind.

My First Guitar, A Fender Jazz Master, I Traded It In For A Les Paul Deluxe.

I Think Kids In Europe Have Developed A Deeper Knowledge Of Music And Of Black Music In Particular. You Go To Europe, And These Kids Know About All This Obscure Funk And Soul That Kids Over Here Wouldn't Know. I Think It's Getting Better In The States, Though, With The Age Of The Internet.

You Can Start Something, Do It, And Believe That That's What You're Doing, But Then The Inspiration Comes And It's Like, "nope, This Is What It Is."

I Identify More With Women Than With Men. I Guess I Have A Strong Feminine Side.

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