October 2023, Lenny Kravitz opened the Blue Electric Light campaign
The first thing you hear on TK421 is the groove: dry funk guitars, a dancefloor kick, analog synths cutting in like neon. Then Lenny Kravitz’s voice rides the pocket, talkbox wheezing in the mix, and a saxophone solo that refuses to stay polite. The title is a wink: TK-421 was the stormtrooper callsign in Star Wars, and the phrase also turns up as slang in Boogie Nights. Kravitz turns the code into a private joke and a dance instruction at once.
Released on 13 October 2023 via Roxie Records / BMG, the single announced Blue Electric Light, his twelfth studio album and first full-length since Raise Vibration (2018). He wrote and produced the track himself, recording at Gregory Town Studio in the Bahamas and playing most of the instruments with longtime guitarist Craig Ross. The album version stretches past five minutes; the video edit hits harder and shorter.
The clip, directed by Tanu Muino, dropped with the single. It is unapologetically physical, built around Kravitz’s body and a nightclub heat that matches the arrangement. On airplay charts in Italy and San Marino it found early radio life, while the full album followed on 24 May 2024, still carrying TK421 as the funk centerpiece critics kept naming first.
Right out of the gate, Kravitz packs a punch on ‘TK421’ with ecstatic funk guitars, robotic analog synths, weezy talkbox, a dancefloor beat, a fiery saxophone solo, and a clever nod to both Boogie Nights and Star Wars.
(BMG press release, October 2023)
What works is the discipline under the flash. The bass stays locked, the guitars chop on the offbeat, and the chorus is simple enough to shout without losing the studio detail. AP News later called the track Prince-adjacent in the best sense: purple-era swagger without a photocopy.
In the Blue Electric Light cycle, TK421 stayed the door opener: the song that told you Kravitz was still building records instrument by instrument, still chasing a floor that moves. Five years off the map, and he came back with a stormtrooper number you can dance to.
