“You expect white supremacy, but not from your own people”: Living Colour claim they’ve been shunned by black entertainment outlets for playing “white people” music

Living Colour issue statement backing up Lenny Kravitz’s comments about black rock musicians being ignored at awards shows held by the black entertainment industry in America

Living Colour have issued a statement expressing their dismay at their belief that they have been shunned and dismissed by key players in the Black entertainment industry for playing rock music, which has been categorised as “white people” music.

The New York band posted their statement on Instagram following online discourse generated in the aftermath of a recent interview which Lenny Kravitz gave to Esquire magazine, during which the musician suggested that he had been deliberately overlooked at awards shows staged by Black entertainment outlets. In the interview, Kravitz stated, “To this day, I have not been invited to a BET thing or a Source Awards thing. And it’s like, here is a Black artist who has reintroduced many Black art forms, who has broken down barriers—just like those that came before me broke down. That is positive. And they don’t have anything to say about it?”

Living Colour vocalist Corey Glover references Kravitz’s comments at the beginning of his own post, which begins, “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.”