Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz Page 0,3

Porgy and Bess, where they were forced to sit in the section “For Colored Only.” Despite the irony—a musical featuring Black performers performed to an audience where Blacks were given second-class treatment—the production triggered my mother’s interest in theater. Her father’s prudent management of money put her through Howard University.

On Sunday mornings, Grandpa dressed me in a suit and tie, and off we went in his Cadillac to Lincoln Center, where, at Avery Fisher Hall, Dr. Ervin Seale presided at the nondenominational Church of the Truth. In his sermons, Dr. Seale praised the great teachers and prophets Buddha, Jesus, and Moses. Grandpa read all Dr. Seale’s books, whose titles (Ten Words That Will Change Your Life and Success Is You) reflected his code of self-improvement as spiritual evolution. Though this compass was not exactly the same as mine would become, his sermons were an introduction to these concepts and an invitation to start forming my own connection to the unknown.

For all my father’s powers and passions, devotion to God was not one. Grandpa was my guiding light for all that and more. He was also surrogate father to dozens of neighborhood boys. He took the kids bowling, drove them to the countryside to play golf, and got them tickets to museums and Broadway plays. He made sure they had library cards; he showed them how to apply to trade school and college. Grandpa saw life as an opportunity for self-improvement at every turn. The great thing about him, though, was that he didn’t see it as an opportunity for just himself, but for everyone—especially kids who lacked resources. Grandpa became that resource for an entire neighborhood.

He was also a disciplinarian, but with a style much different from Dad’s. If I was mischievous, Grandpa sat me down and, like a psychologist, explained how my bad behavior was hurting me more than anyone else. He droned on and on and on. He wanted me to understand why I’d done what I’d done, so that I could identify the problem and resolve it. The whole process was agonizing. I would have preferred a beating. But thank God he had insight and patience. His approach was invaluable.

Grandpa had a Bahamian Sidney Poitier–style accent; Grandma spoke with a slight Georgia drawl and attended a Methodist church. If he was intellect, she was soul. My grandmother was the love of my life. A full-bodied woman who loved her southern-fried cooking, Bessie possessed a God-given ability to read people right. When Grandpa went off on a philosophical rant, she’d look at him as if to say, “Albert, please!”

Back then, Bed-Stuy was a village, a community comprised of relocated people who, like Grandma, hailed from “Down South” or, like Grandpa, the Caribbean. It felt safe. When I think of Bed-Stuy, I think of Mother Sister, Ruby Dee’s character in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, who watches over the neighborhood from her window. We had Mother Sisters everywhere. If my grandmother was at work and one of the Mother Sisters caught me doing wrong, she’d discipline me right then and there. Then she’d tell Grandma, which means I’d get my ass whupped a second time.

My grandmother was so protective of me and loved me so much that even if I got in trouble for a good reason, she would defend me. She’d deny I’d done it with every fiber of her being, and then, in private, she’d tear my behind up for what I’d done. Punishment was to teach, not to shame. So, she wasn’t going to let anybody embarrass me. Still, her anger never lasted long. By evening, I’d be cuddled up in her bed, the two of us watching I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, or her favorite, The Lawrence Welk Show.

Life with my grandparents in Bed-Stuy was not only its own distinct universe, but I was a whole other person there, with a whole other name. This came about because so many of our neighbors came from Down South. (Down South was the term everyone used. Until I learned otherwise, I thought Down South was the name of an actual city.) Most of the transplanted southerners retained their drawls. When I met Poppy Branch, the kid next door who had just moved from “Down South,” his sister Renee asked me, “Whas yo naaaaaame?”

“Lennie.”

“Eddie?”

“I said, Lennie.”

“Oh, yeahhh. Eddie.”

I gave up. And just like that, I became Eddie throughout Brooklyn. In Manhattan, I was Lennie (with an ie, as I used to spell it); and in Brooklyn, I