Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and actor whose four-decade career has produced four consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance across 1999–2002 (a Grammy record), 12 studio albums, and continuous influence on subsequent American rock-and-funk-fusion songwriters. He was born Leonard Albert Kravitz on May 26, 1964, in New York City. His Russian-Jewish-American father Sy Kravitz was an NBC Television Network producer, and his African-Bahamian-American mother Roxie Roker was an actress (best known for her role as Helen Willis on the CBS sitcom The Jeffersons, 1975–1985).

His education at Beverly Hills High School (graduated 1982) — where he met his future first wife Lisa Bonet — launched his early-career path. His 1989 first album Let Love Rule — released by Virgin Records — launched his early-1990s American rock-and-funk-fusion-genre breakthrough. The 1993 third album Are You Gonna Go My Way — which produced his title-track single — launched his mid-1990s American rock-music public profile.

His 1998 fifth album 5 — which produced his single "Fly Away" (winning the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance) — produced his late-1990s American rock-music commercial peak. The subsequent four consecutive 1999–2002 Grammy Award wins for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance — across "Fly Away" (1999), "American Woman" (2000, his cover of The Guess Who song), "Again" (2001), and "Dig In" (2002) — produced his four-Grammy-record sequence.

His acting career across the 2010s produced his 2012 supporting role as Cinna in Gary Ross's The Hunger Games and the subsequent three Hunger Games sequels, his 2013 role as gospel singer Cornelius James in Lee Daniels's The Butler, and his 2014 lead role as detective Marcus in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. He was married to actress Lisa Bonet from 1987 to 1993, and the couple has one daughter — actress Zoë Kravitz.

His name Lenny began as the diminutive of Leonard (from the Old Germanic root meaning "lion strength"). Lenny was a popular American boys' name through the mid-20th century.