Lenny Kravitz – Black and White America – Double Vinyl Records

Description

Lenny Kravitz – Black and White America – Double Vinyl Records

Black and White America opens with its central idea already in place. Lenny Kravitz's 2011 album brings questions of identity and race into a musical world built from funk, soul, and rock, with the title song giving the record a personal as well as a public subject. It was his ninth studio album, recorded in the Bahamas and Paris and produced by Kravitz himself. The sixteen-song program has room for guitar-driven performances, dance rhythms, ballads, and two hip-hop collaborations. Those styles have long been part of his vocabulary, and here they support an unusually broad view of the world around him.

Much of the record draws on the sound of seventies soul and funk: prominent bass lines, rhythmic guitar, and arrangements that leave the groove plenty of space. Come On Get It brings a more forceful rock presence, while Superlove places a polished dance feeling beside those older influences. Stand takes a different route, using a readily approachable melody and an encouraging outlook. Kravitz supplies the connecting voice, moving between an emphatic lead and softer phrasing without making the stylistic changes feel like unrelated projects. The record's range is tied to the music he plays as well as the songs he writes.

Jay-Z and DJ Military appear on Boongie Drop, bringing another rhythmic character into the first half of the album. Drake joins Sunflower later in the program. Those guests place contemporary rap voices inside a record otherwise strongly associated with Kravitz's own singing and instrumental approach. They also make clear that his affection for earlier funk and soul does not require him to close off newer collaborations. The songs fit beside In the Black, Liquid Jesus, and Rock Star City Life because the album is already comfortable changing the balance between guitar, rhythm, and voice.

The more reflective selections give the title's questions a personal scale. Dream is a piano ballad inspired by his parents' interracial marriage, while The Faith of a Child brings another kind of contemplation into the final stretch. These quieter songs belong beside the more extroverted material because family, belief, and identity are connected subjects for Kravitz here. I Can't Be Without You and Looking Back on Love add further variations on that inward perspective. The double album can move from a public statement to an intimate subject without losing the singer who holds those concerns together.

Push closes the standard sixteen-track program with a clear connection to the soul tradition that runs through the album. Black and White America offers a wider view of Kravitz than a selection of his biggest guitar singles would provide, especially in its balance of funk arrangements and personal writing. Stand and Superlove make the more accessible side easy to hear, while the title song and Dream explain why this particular record carries the name it does. It is an album in which his familiar mixture of styles becomes a way of discussing his own background and the country named in the title.

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic

Release Details

Artist

Lenny Kravitz

Album

Black and White America

Format

Double Vinyl Records

Media configuration

2

Original album release

2011

Label

Roadrunner / Rhino

Track Listing

Black and White America

Come On Get It

In the Black

Liquid Jesus

Rock Star City Life

Boongie Drop (featuring Jay-Z and DJ Military)

Stand

Superlove

Everything

I Can't Be Without You

Looking Back on Love

Life Ain't Ever Been Better Than It Is Now

The Faith of a Child

Sunflower (featuring Drake)

Dream

Push