Leonard Albert "Lenny" Kravitz (born May 26, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and arranger whose "retro" style incorporates elements of rock, soul, funk, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, folk, and ballads.
In addition to singing lead and backing vocals, Kravitz often plays all the guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, and percussion himself when recording. He won the Grammy Award for "Best Male Rock Vocal Performance" four years in a row from 1999 to 2002. He has sold an estimated thirty million albums worldwide
In January 2006, Kravitz contributed "Breathe" to absoluttracks, a project sponsored by Absolut Vodka. This song was re-mixed by ten musical producers, and these tracks were available via the Internet on the sites www.absolutkravitz.com and www.absoluttracks.com.
Kravitz appeared in the audience of Madonna's Confessions Tour (2006) during numerous shows. He would later join Madonna live on stage to play guitar on the song, "I Love New York," at the last of four Paris shows.
Lately, Kravitz has founded a design firm named Kravitz Design, stating if he hadn't been a musician he would have been a designer. Kravitz Design, focused on interior and furniture design, has designed residential spaces, as well as a chandelier for the crystal company Swarovski, named "Casino Royale."
On July 7, 2007, Kravitz performed at the Brazilian leg of Live Earth in Rio de Janeiro, making him the only major international rock star to perform two huge free concerts at the world-famous Copacabana Beach. Kravitz had already played there on March 21, 2005, drawing 300,000 people on a concert of his own. The Live Earth concert, with eight other acts on the bill, including Pharrell Williams and Macy Gray, took 400,000 to the beach.
Also in 2007, Kravitz released a version of "Cold Turkey" by John Lennon on the charity CD Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur. Kravitz also spent time recording his latest album, It Is Time for a Love Revolution, released February 5, 2008. Another album, Funk, will also be released in 2008. This is believed to be a project that Kravitz has been working on since 1997. Some of the original tracks for Funk were recorded while he was in New Orleans at Allen Toussaint's studio while taking a break for several months from recording in New York City.
On January 17, 2008, Kravitz embarked on a 9 city mini-tour to promote his new album It Is Time for a Love Revolution. The tour started in Santa Monica, California and ended in New York City on February 1st. The tour was done in association with Myspace and called the "Get on the Bus" tour. At each stop on the tour, they would pick up one contest winner and their guest and they rode on the "Love Revolution" bus until the end of the tour.
On February 11, 2008, Kravitz was admitted to Miami Hospital suffering from severe bronchitis. He had been suffering from a series of severe respiratory tract infections since mid-January, and the illness has evolved into bronchitis.
Kravitz's illness had forced him to postpone his trip to Europe to promote his album It Is Time for a Love Revolution. On March 19, 2008 he canceled the South American part of his tour due to the same illness. The decision affected planned concerts in Colombia, Mexico, Brasil, Chile and Argentina. In Argentina Kravitz had a performance in the biggest rock festival there, Quilmes Rock Fest
