Lenny Kravitz Fought For Respect In The Design World Before Kanye West — thefader.com

Kanye's doing fashion, you're doing design. Why do you think it's important for musicians to branch out into other realms? I don't know that it's important. If you have the talent, that's one thing. I started a design company 14 years ago, Kravitz Design, and I started very small and very humbly. Over the years I've built my company to where I'm doing hotels and condominiums. I did a 48-story condominium tower in Miami. I've done two hotels with Philippe Starck. I'm doing my own furniture, I'm doing accessories, and all kinds of things. These are things that I [used to do] on my own time for myself, and eventually I wanted to have a company because I got to the point where I couldn't do it for myself any longer. I couldn't keep changing houses, and redoing them and redoing them, so I said, you know what? I love design, let me start my own company. But I just think it's important if you have the desire and you have the passion. I've been very fortunate to be able to do music and acting and design and photography—I have my photography show opening tonight actually.

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