Until then I mostly listened to R&B, jazz, soul, and gospel-not so much rock ’n’ roll. after my mother, Roxie Roker, got cast in The Jeffersons. But your first musical epiphany came when you were in junior high and heard “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin. In Manhattan, then in California, people like Sammy Davis Jr. Life there was not only its own distinct universe I was a whole other person there. When I look back, I think of Mother Sister, Ruby Dee’s character in Do the Right Thing, who watches over the neighborhood from her window. Back then Bed-Stuy was a community comprised of relocated people from down South and the Caribbean. Grandpa had a Bahamian Sidney Poitier–style accent Grandma spoke with a slight Georgia drawl.
You also spent a lot of time with your maternal grandparents, in what was practically a different universe. At age 7, I saw the Jackson 5 at Madison Square Garden. I took painting and sculpture classes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. So it’s the early ’70s, and we’d go to Café Carlyle to see Bobby Short. My parents took me out with them whenever possible. Your parents lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan-you lived across the street from Joe Namath! You partook of the glamorous life. Yet somehow I knew that differences were blessings, that I had all these fabulous colors and characters and environments enriching me. I never thought about it until my first day of school, when a kid bolted out of nowhere, pointed at them, and yelled, “Your mother’s Black and your daddy’s white!” I’d never realized before that my parents didn’t match.
When did you become aware of the difference between your parents? You describe a distinct yin and yang within you-which makes total sense, as you’re a Gemini.Ī quintessential Gemini! “I am deeply two-sided,” you write. From his home in the Bahamas-an Airstream and an adjacent shack-the Grammy-winning musician and first-time author spoke to O’s books editor, Leigh Haber. Let Love Rule (Holt) is part one of Kravitz’s memoir, in which he chronicles his coming-of-age as an artist.
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