"Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz, Monday, February 28, 2022

Born in 1964 to African American actress Roxie Roker and to Jewish-Ukrainian NBC executive Sly Kravitz, Lenny Kravitz built a musical career in the '90s based on Rock 'n' roll nostalgia. As a biracial rocker, Kravitz had a hard time securing a record contract with the labels telling him that he wasn't "black enough" or "white enough" for a specific genre. However, when Kravitz did become a rockstar, he was often criticized for his regressive, old-time rock sound. 

I WANT TO GET AWAY. "Fly Away" comes from Kravitz's fifth album 5. It peaked at #12 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles, and it topped the charts in several countries. The song was used in a commercial for the French-made automobile, the Peugeot 206 supermini car, making the song popular wherever the car was sold. Years later, the song would appear in the American commercial for Nissan's Xterra. And while "Fly Away" hit the airwaves in 1998, about a year before I started listening to the radio, I knew the song thanks to its inclusion in the commercial for the first American version of Now That's What I Call Music!  The song is simple--a catchy electric-guitar hook, a funky bass effect on the verse, Lenny singing with a rockstar voice lyrics that could have been penned by his ten-year-old daughter (the now famous actress Zoë Kravitz). But somehow there's just enough nostalgia and just enough catchiness to make this the badass song of middle school. It may have been one of those moments when sheltered from the dangers of the secular world I decided that I liked this rock' n' roll sound, much to the disdain of my mother.

I'D FLY ABOVE THE TREES. That being said, I wish I liked Lenny Kravitz's discography. I wish I could get submerged in it. Why? Because there is such an absence in Rock history of musicians of color, especially as the genre of rock music comes from styles appropriated or stolen from black influences--whether it was blues, jazz, or early rockers. Lenny Kravitz has such an interesting Wikipedia page, but I remember so many haters from back in the '90s and early '00s saying that he was a rock 'n' roll poser or even some sort of bad influence on the fallen Cosby daughter, Lisa Bonet. Kravitz's simple music--at least the hits--are talked about as being a) stadium anthems or "jock rock" b) "butt rock" or c) "dad rock" --basically music for people who are indifferent to music. Maybe the Imagine Dragons or Coldplay of his day. But how did this happen? He is influenced by what some have called the greatest music ever. But in that is also part of my problem. I'm a terrible music critic in that I love Sufjan Stevens, but I'll press skip 9 times out of 10 when a Led Zeppelin song comes up on shuffle. Yet, some of my fondest musical memories are watching The Song Remains the Same as a teenage with my dad. With as much racism that was a part of the Lenny Kravitz conversation, I wonder just how fair the criticism was. 

I WISH THAT I COULD FLY. So as we end Black History Month, I want to challenge myself to more musical diversity. It's more possible now than ever for anyone to make music in any genre. Sure, production costs may limit the sound quality. But the Internet has given artists of all colors, beliefs, and gender identities a platform to build an audience in any genre. Queer Christian singer-songwriters, MAGA rappers, black country singers--it's all online. Of course it doesn't make up for the gaps in music history. There were no black Third Eye Blinds, Anberlins, or Sufjan Stevenses.

There was only old-timey rock 'n' roll singer/guitarist Lenny Kravitz, and hip hop/R&B and a slew of white alternative rock groups. 

 

Read “Fly Away” by Lenny Kravitz on Genius

Check out my Black History playlist:

Rick Beato talking about Autotune: