Rock’s Classic Example

By all rights, Lenny Kravitz shouldn’t be a star. Think about it: How many African American, classic-rock-worshiping fashion plates are ripping up the pop charts these days?

Kravitz, whose last album, “5,” has sold close to 3 million copies, is the exception to the rule. His career longevity and consistent sales are an anomaly at a time when record buyers binge and purge on pop music at an alarmingly rapid rate.

“There are certain prejudices that come with being a black rock ‘n’ roll artist,” says the singer-guitarist, who is now based in Miami. “My strength is that I play different styles of music, but that can become a weakness due to the fact that people like to draw a box around you. It’s been a trip getting my stuff to work on the radio.”

Influenced by Decades of Musical Forms

Depending on how you look at it, Kravitz--who is part of the bill of hit makers at Saturday’s Wango Tango 2000 concert at Dodger Stadium--has either been a crass revivalist or a bold musical progressive, blending the epic, expansive whomp of ‘70s hard rock with striations of soul, blues and folk.

Kravitz prefers to see himself as a living, breathing paradigm of the way things ought to be. “If you listened to L.A. stations like KROQ and KMET in the ‘70s, the playlists were all mixed up,” says Kravitz, who was born in New York and moved to Los Angeles when he was 10. “And the Top 10 lists in the ‘60s mixed black and white--the Beatles, the Supremes, the Beach Boys. But that just doesn’t exist anymore.”

Kravitz’s devotion to vintage sounds verges on the fetishistic. Everything that he writes is informed by the classic-rock and soul canon--it’s like listening to music with its own set of hyperlinks. For “5,” Kravitz even hired engineer Terry Manning, who worked with Led Zeppelin at its creative peak. For Kravitz, this is all just his way of keeping a vital tradition alive.

“The level of musical genius was higher in the ‘60s and ‘70s than it is now,” he says. “When you had artists like [Jimi] Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan working at their peak, it was truly groundbreaking. I don’t know that we can name that many folks that are genius musicians today.”

As for hip-hop, Kravitz keeps his distance: “I love the whole vibe of hip-hop, but I don’t like what the majority of them are saying. A lot of that stuff is focused on materialism, things that have to do with the outer self. I don’t think that’s really healthy.”

It’s a little ironic that this criticism of hip-hop for celebrating the “outer self” comes from one of the most image-conscious artists in rock?

“I do enjoy fashion as an art, ‘cause that’s something that I grew up with,” concedes Kravitz, who is the son of late actress Roxie Roker and TV news producer Sy Kravitz. “Actors and people like Miles Davis hung around the house, and they were very stylish. If you look at my first-grade pictures, I dressed pretty much the way I dress now. I don’t put as much effort into it as people think.”

BE THERE

KIIS Wango Tango 2000, with hosts ‘N Sync, Enrique Iglesias, Lenny Kravitz, Sugar Ray, Eiffel 65, Marc Anthony, Jessica Simpson, Brian McKnight and the Goo Goo Dolls, Saturday, 2 p.m., at Dodger Stadium, 1000 Elysian Park Ave. Sold Out. (323) 224-1500.