Photographer: Manuela Langotsch
(I've wanted to address the article with Lenny Kravitz earlier, but we’ve been on tour overseas)
It’s come to my attention that people responded to Lenny Kravitz’s statement, that black organizations in the entertainment industry never really sought him out.
Retorting that they did make effort to contact him but his “people “said that Mr. Kravitz had no interest. That is false. Whether his people made that statement, I cannot say. Living Colour throughout has made a conscious effort to make ourselves available to places like BET, the Source etc. Mind you this was happening simultaneously to us in the rock idiom.
Their response to us usually was that we did not fit in their format. Ironic, that was the same response we got from the Rock n roll / white entertainment organizations. Celebrating diversity in the entertainment field doesn’t start with the blues and ends with hip-hop. There have been expressions in between. George Clinton Parliament/Funkadelic, Fishbone, Tracy Chapman, Meshell Ndegeocello; even though there has been glancing acceptance of someone like Jimi Hendrix, rocks influence on the diaspora, has very rarely acknowledged.
Lenny was right. None of us has been awarded let alone acknowledged for our achievements. Living Colour in the past has worked with such historical luminaries as a Little Richard and Mick Jagger. We’ve worked with a hip-hop royalty from Queen Latifah, Doug E Fresh, Chuck D & Flava Flav to Run DMC. And yet there’s barely a mention of rocks contribution to what is modern black music, let alone in rock and roll circles.
It’s been our experience that most people of color have no idea how deep and far reaching the influence of Black people in the modern-day rock ‘n’ roll there are, let alone its impact on R&B and hip hop. What we hear is “that’s white people stuff” when in fact, it is not!
It’s hard enough to live in places where you expect white supremacy, but not from your own people.
~Corey Glover/Living Colour