Zoe Kravitz: 'I Didn't Identify With Black Culture' as a Kid
Zoe Kravitz isn't your average It Girl. From her boho-chic style to her extracurricular activities — she fronts the punk band Lolawolf — everything Kravitz does defies your expectation of a 20-something starlet on the rise.
Especially her candidness in interviews.
Refusing to be muzzled by a publicist, Kravitz has always been refreshingly frank when talking to the press. She's opened up about everything from her struggle with eating disorders to her unconventional upbringing with refreshing honesty. Now, she's going there with NYLON about race.
"I identified with white culture, and I wanted to fit in," she tells the magazine, on which she graces the August "Denim Issue" cover, about going to a predominantly white high school. "I didn’t identify with Black culture, like, I didn’t like Tyler Perry movies, and I wasn’t into hip-hop music. I liked Neil Young."
But as time went on, her views shifted. "Black culture is so much deeper than that," she says, "but unfortunately that is what’s fed through the media. That’s what people see. That’s what I saw. But then I got older and listened to A Tribe Called Quest and watched films with Sidney Poitier, and heard Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. I had to un-brainwash myself. It’s my mission, especially as an actress."
But Kravitz isn't just pretty on the inside. She's got a fairly spectacular exterior, too, which photographer Bella Howard and stylist Sean Knight explore in the issue's stunning photo spread.
Click here for Zoe's thoughts on body insecurities, Miley Cyrus and more.
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(Photos: Bella Howard for NYLON Magazine, August 2015)
