Lenny Kravitz Honored By France With Highest Award

PARIS -- France has paid tribute to Grammy winner Lenny Kravitz with its highest award, the Legion of Honor.

Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand hailed the 47-year-old singer-songwriter at a Paris ceremony on Wednesday, telling him "you freed yourself of the barriers between black and white sound."

Kravitz told The Associated Press that he got his first big break at a 1989 music festival in the western French city of Rennes that transformed his career "overnight." He said "I know it sounds like a fairy tale but it's true."

Kravitz was born to a black mother and white father, and his latest album, "Black and White America," tackles interracial issues – notably what his parents experienced in 1960s New York.

Comments

[Cakey4814]

01:51 PM on 12/09/2011

Needs to be recognized here..rare Black rocker and we're ignoring him..

[Jehosafats]

03:07 PM on 12/08/2011

So he got his start in France? That I did not know.