Lenny Kravitz “The Pleasure and the Pain” Directed by Dikayl Rimmasch
Jun. 29, 2015
Lenny Kravitz’s latest album, 2014’s Strut, may be an ode to Seventies New York City where he grew up, but his new music video, for the single “The Pleasure and the Pain,” is all about the road. Shot by director Dikayl Rimmasch (Beyoncé, Jay Z, BigBang) while Kravitz was on tour in the U.S., the clip revels in sun-dappled black-and-white footage of the musician and a beautiful female companion as they motorcycle, skinny-dip, party and of course rock their way across the country. But the road is also a figurative one: a path from romantic bliss to crushing heartbreak.
“Working with Dikayl is a very organic and spontaneous experience,” Kravitz tells Rolling Stone. “The plan was to shoot for two days and we ended up shooting for nearly two weeks in various locations. It was all about capturing the emotion of the song and feeling the relationship build. As far as we were concerned, the video shoot was finished when we felt that.”
Strut, too, came together organically, as Kravitz moved away from the more R&B- and hip-hop-informed sound of 2011’s Black and White in America, with its Jay Z and Drake cameos, and back to the gritty, stripped-down approach of 1993’s Are You Gonna Go My Way. The resulting record, his 10th studio offering, was named by Rolling Stone one of the 50 Best Albums of 2014 for its “funky after-hours grooves and soulful hooks.” Kravitz, as always, played most of the LP’s parts himself. “I like making music that’s rooted in playing instruments,” he told Rolling Stone. “You don’t hear that so much now.”
Fans can hear him live this summer in Europe, where he is currently on the second leg of his 2015 Strut tour. In August, Kravitz will return to the states to join Lauryn Hill and Grace Jones as one of the headliners of the annual AfroPunk NYC Festival in Brooklyn.
Source: Rolling Stone