Jon Batiste

Museum in Harlem. He also co composed the music for the latest Pixar masterpiece, Soul, which has released last fall. If his expansive career has a through line, it's that music makes the world better. He often performs spontaneous public events that he calls love riots, spreading joy throughout his adopted city of New York. Over the summer, he used his voice to amplify protests for the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the murders of George Floyd

and Brianna Taylor. More recently, he performed for frontline workers at vaccination sites as part of New York Pops Up. He continues to push for a higher social consciousness on his new album We Are, which is out today. It's a record that blends the whole continuum of American music, from jazz and rock to country and hip hop. For such a community minded man, this album certainly took a village.

There over a hundred musicians playing on it, including legends like Quincy Jones, Maybe Staples, Steve Jordan's and Trombone Shorty. I'm so happy to speak to the maestro himself, Mr John Battit wait, oh wait, yeah, oh man, John, I'd asked to do it with you. I got a little piano over here, but I don't want to embarrass myself, so I'll leave. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Man. What kind of piano. It's just a little cork nothing, a little apartment living so I don't know. I don't know

if too, I don't have a lot of room. Oh you're killing it though, Oh mass, thank you so much for taking the time to talk today. It's it's it's such a pleasure. I've got so many things I want to ask me. Well, yeah, oh man, this is really the perfect place to start. You're gearing up to release your new album, we Are, and it's it's an album that's just jam packed with warmth and joy. It's just coming out of every song. You can really feel it.

But before we dive into the specifics of the album, I wanted to ask you about a concept that runs through all of your work, and I love it so much. I think it's so important to talk about social music. Tell me if you would about that philosophy. I think it's so important to share that with people. Oh. Absolutely, Social music is tapping into the power of music at

its rawist form. And we've looked at music as entertainment for so long and it's become a commodity, but you have to think that for centuries and centuries before it's become this thing that we put on t shirts and CDs and and we sell. It was a part of the fabric of everyday life in communities. You have drum circles in Ghana, you'd have people passing the fiddle around. In the Apple Asia, you have people singing songs, indigenous

people from America, Native Americans, the spirituals, folk songs. And there's not many places left where there's that kind of social music. And my idea of social music is taking all of those different forms of music and connecting them and creating a d categorized form of music that's a part of the fabric of everyday life in the twenty one century. And it sounds like it took a community, a whole village to put this album together. Some hundred

artists have read the play on it. You've said that the blueprint of of We Are came together over six days in your dressing room. What was that process? Like? How? How was that? It was kinetic? Man? The energy was in the air. You know, it was a great thing to capture because I was in the middle of so many things, you know, doing the show, doing a musical, during the score for a movie Pixar sold doing all

these things at one time. And I was coming in and out of my dressing room, and I had creatives and food deliveries and instruments all over the place, just kind of around the clock for six days. And that's how we came up with the blueprint of the album. Autumn Roll, songwriter, Kids, old producer, myself, The three of us were kind of the nucleus of that six day session, and um, there were many many musicians coming in and out, as I said, But then over eight or nine months

following that, six days. I built the record out, UM built the vision out in l A, New Orleans and New York. And that was really a powerful thing because it concluded during the first wave of the pandemic and during the protest A lot of them, um you know, we're going on in New York City, and I led the first musical marches in New York City when um we we found out about George Floyd, and um you know, there was so much going on, and I think all of that time was captured in this record. Yeah, for

for making a record of social music. The events of that of the last year must have changed the meaning of the music that you've written prior to that immense slateman with George Floyd, as you mentioned Brianna Taylor and and just the whole Black Lives Matter movement. I wanted to ask you about the cover art for for for We Are, because there's a lot of history in that font. If you look closely, it's modeled after a very famous poster and in the the Civil rights movement. I want to

ask you about that. Absolutely the Memphis Sanitation workers strike, which Dr Martin Luther King Junior championed nationally just prior to him being assassinated in which my grandfather was a part of, which you know, as as an activist, as a as a leader in his community, as the president of the Hotel Workers Union and the Postal Workers Union in Louisiana at different times he fought for the rights

of workers in in Louisiana. Um So, just the connection to my personal lineage and also the lineage of the black diaspora and all of the heroes and unsung heroes. That's what the album is about. It's my coming of age as an artist and as a person through my lineage and my craft, and also the coming of age in the twenty one century of all of these different

forms of black culture and social music. The title we Are is so great because to me, it reminds me one of those optical puzzles where you look at it one way, it looks like one thing, but then if your perspective a bit, it looks like something holy other If we are as a question, it's an answer, it's a promise, it's an affirmation. It's so many different things. What does that title mean for you? That's it, You nailed it. It's one of those things that gives people

the question and answer at the same time. It gives people a prayer and a hope, and also it gives them a vision of the future and of the past at the same time. The great art that I really admire in what I strive to do is to exist in the space of timelessness, which means that you're coming from the past, the present, and in the future at

the same time. You're broadcasting what the vision of the future is through your art as you're inspired by what the vision of the past was and all the things that come from that, and then you're in the present while making these two things come together. Such a great title for this time too, because it seems like it this moment, we've been doing a lot of soul searching, both as a country with this election, but also in

the last year of being isolated. We've kind of been forced to look in word in a lot of ways now. So it's perfect time for that time, man. We that's the silver lining of this pandemic. I going to ask you, I mean, thinking about how you've you've used music in the in the in the civil justice marches last summer, and also in your love riots. Why is music so

good at telling the truth? Or conveying the truth. Music is vibration, and as pure as form is vibration, and the frequencies that music create are unable to be manufactured or adjusted to tell a story that they don't contain. That vibration contains an energy and a meaning, and it can't tell a story that's not in the vibration. It's it's you hear a note the way I play that note.

It's a different vibration, different meanings. Music is the art of of mastering frequency and vibration and communicating those frequencies and vibrations. So much of your art is about bringing joy to people, but also this this truth to people, and those two points, joy and truth don't always exist in in harmony. Sometimes the truth isn't very joyful. Actually recently does that? Is that ever hard for you to to rationalize those two points? I think that the joy

comes in knowing. The joy comes in knowing that we're here and we're part of a master plan, and this aspect of life, even the troublesome aspects of life, even aspects of life that bring so much destruction, or part of that plan, and knowing that allows us to face them with joy. Knowing that this is not the end um and it's not an optimism that's rooted in some sort of idealistic naive tape, but it's actually rooted in facing the hearts rather than acting like it doesn't exist.

At what point when you're writing does the audience enter your consciousness? When you're writing, are you writing purely for you and then you're thinking about presenting it to people? Or are you do you have people in mind? Are you conveying a message as you're writing, or does that come from thinking about what the creator is putting in me at that moment as the vessel, as this vehicle for whatever I'm I'm I'm channeling. Um, it's being given

to me. I don't control that, So I think that I oftentimes think about the audience and the people after the fact when I'm performing and i'm and I'm delivering the message that I've I've channeled onto the page, onto the record or onto the piano, into my voice and my dance moved or whatever it is. I'm I'm just thinking about that afterwards. Um. And this is how the

album was made. There were a lot of things going on in the world, but it really was born out of this internal coming of age and this channeling of a message and a theme that given to me that turned out to be very prescient for our time. I mentioned all the different artists who came together to make this album with you, and there are people like Quinchy Jones, Babs Staples, Steve Jordan's, Trumbone Shorty, just so many incredible names. Was there anyone who really intimidated you to work with?

Are you past that point? And everyone's just just an artist. I always feel a great deal of reverence for anybody who I'm able to work with, in particular everybody on this album. There's a story that I could tell about each person on this album that is a is a life changing coming of age for me as an artist

and as a creator. You know, talking about the first time I met Quincy Jones, or conversations with Mavis, or thinking about growing up in New Orleans with Trumbone Shorty, p J. Morton, talking about the Saint Augustine High School, Marching Bay. You talked about the gospel sold old in a quiet my grandfather's church, my dad is playing based on the album. You got Emily King on the album

who you know? It's just incredible musicians, Robert Randolph, incredible artists, um and I just find that, you know, you got over two hundred artists on it, but all of them are meaningful. And that's what gives me that reverence, because it's humbling for me to be able to capture this thing that I have in my mind, that I'm carrying my soul and have all of the right people around

to really make it, make it be real. Almost seems like he chose people like a painter chooses a shade of color, Get the right kind of green on there, the kind of blue to borrow Miles Davis phrase, you know what I mean, that's right, It's you're right, though, man, I didn't. I didn't think about it like a album where you get features for the name recognition or things like that. I was just thinking about it from the

perspective of I'm creating a master work. I'm creating something that only specific colors can fit within the context of this whole painting. And in a lot of ways, I like the analogy of it being made like a great novel um where you you don't skip chapters or you wouldn't know, you don't leave out words, or you wouldn't really know what was happening with the right level of acuity. So um, I think about the album like that. It's a forty five minute novel. Even if you close your eye.

You know, if you close your eyes, in your mind's eye, you will see it as a movie. It's like you don't skip a scene in the movie. And that's how I encourage people to listen to it. Just absorb it from the beginning to end. It's a forty five minute meditation or prayer or dance party for your day every day. Like, what's it like making music with your dad? That's gotta be something really special. I know he was a huge part of what made you love music. He's incredible because

he's such an intelligent man. He's just so well versed in many different ways. He's an he's a real, real inspiration to me as a person. So making music with him is great just because I get to spend time with him. In the last few years, you know, I haven't really spent as much time because I'm so busy, and I live in New York and they live in New Orleans, and I've been visiting. But it's never the same when you don't live there. You visit for a couple of days at a time, and then a few

months willgo by and you talk on the phone. But that's not the same as hanging out making music, you know, living at home or him living up here. So it was really beautiful just for that alone, you know, and in fact, I mean musically speaking. You know, if you listen to what he plays, it's just you know, if you listen to Cry, for instance, the way that he drives that song with Steve Jordan's He's playing the bass and Steve is playing the drums and it's just like

a machine. Is heck of a rhythm section. Tell me about that song and that the song Cried harkens back to the Great Migration. Tell me more about about the meeting behind that song. Incredibly powerful song, one of my favorites on the album. Oh Man, thank you, Thank you for listening and digging into that one, because I find that if you open your heart and your soul to

this music, it will leave you full. And it's full so much stuff, um, so many inspirations, and cry with something that I was inspired by the lineage of my family that actually are black family farmers, you know. Four generations of black family farmers in Georgia and then also um in Mississippi on both sides of my family, mother

and father side. There's that lineage that is rooted in the time after reconstruction and slavery of our ancestors, and they gave sustenance and worked the land and gave the people food that helped fuel the economy and feel fuel people's lives. And music came from that, and we think about folk in Americana and we oftentimes don't think about the black contribution to that, which the song almost as

a reclaiming of that. There's a great quote that you gave recently that and I'm I'm trying to recall off top my head one of the one of the great twenty one of the goals for the twenty feet century should be to recall, to recall where all our melodies came from. And I thought that was what I wanted to ask you more about that. That's speaking about going through your own history through music. I wanted to touch

on that a little bit. Well, our melodies come from places that are rooted in our history and our lineage, and they go far far back into time before we can even be conscious of their existence. They're ubiquitous, they're just in the air. There's so many melodies that are just a part of of of life that in in making things into a commodity, we lose touch with how they function societally, We lose touch with how they function within communities. You talk about Grio to African storytellers who

pass the oral tradition down. Those come with melodies. There will come with dances, those come with rhythms, and you talk about nursery rhymes, you talk about songs. All of these things that seem to have been in existence before time itself, and we have to bring that back into time today because our trends in the thinking of genres puts things in a box where we lose track of our melodic and cultural dna because we're trying these to

fit into formula marketing schemes. So that's really what social music is all about. I remember my one of uh music is a big point of bonding between me and my own father, and I remember taking him to a music festival and he saw I can't remember who the artist was, but afterwards we were talking and he was so jazzed about it because he was like, I don't know what genre that was. That was like a little bit of techno, a little bit R and B, a

little bit of rock. And to see it through his eyes as a sixties something you're old man like, oh yeah, Genres, it's all mixed now. And that that makes me think of a track like I Need You, which you know spans from the Lindy Hop to you rapping. I mean, tell me more about that song. That song is just infectious. That's just like a warm sunny day on record. I wanted that. I wanted that feeling, man, I wanted that feeling of just um, unbridled joy. We were on the

set Alan Ferguson, the director, and Jamal McWilliams. That was uh um. That was our emo with creating the video, which you see me doing the Lindy Hop of the modern dance, but also the song itself was created. You know, Autumn Roll and Kissel and the three of us in the dressing room made this song on the last day of that that six seventh day run, and it was really the thing that captured a lot of what the album is about. In a very literal sense. It's literally

a song you know, you got this baseline. It's literally a song that has that juke joint um chipland circuit black social music baseline from the you know the forties Little Richard you know that field mixed with a pop hip hop song that you were here on Z one hundreds. So that that is such a literal manifestation of what the album is about and what social music is about. It's a continuum. It's all related, it's all linked. Yeah, it's all It's all connected. That's it. The video is spectacular.

I mean, it's it's a showing a scene of a nineteen thirties chipland circuit you joint come into life and you you got moves. I gotta say, I know, I love it, man. I love that. You know, dancing is fun because it allows people to be liberated just by seeing you. That was the greatness, you know what I mean?

They see you and it's just like, even if they're not dancing, there's a freedom that emerges within maybe they I want to ask you, is there a musical era that's the most fascinating for you that you would have liked to have lived through? Would you want to have done the Lindy Hop in the thirties or or looked through some other some other time or man. You know, I find a lot of different eras fascinating. I would love to um have have experienced. But I oftentimes think

about the future. I want to live in the future. I want to know what music is going. I want to create it. I want to use elements of the past, like the golden age of of American popular song and American music where classical musicians and first generation immigrants mixed with lack musicians playing blues jazz, all of the different forms of pop music of that day in the twenties and thirties. You know that era where the music was blended. UM.

I think about that. I think about the era of time and um in in in Benin and what the europe but tradition with the europe of people. You know what my lineage is actually from UM if you go way back, just how did they make music and worship?

You know, when I travel to Africa, when I go to um different parts of the world like Havanna, if I go to Brazil and experience those ways that the music is still just like in New Orleans and Haiti, import of prints, you know where the music is still in the street, pouring out of people's houses, in the hallways, on the porch, going to the beginning of those traditions in different parts of the world. You know, that's my

vision of the future. Actually, let's take all of that stuff, because now is the first time in history where I could connect those traditions and create something and that is completely of without category. And it's so interesting because we forget, you know, growing up, you know, being especially in Northeastern United States, that that music for thousands of years was

part of the community. I mean, now it's something that there's this prevalent notion that music is something that you get to do if you're good enough, and then we sticky on the stage above other people. I think always thought that was an interesting metaphor. And everyone gets together and kind of watches you and your mother, and how do you combat that? How do you see ways of making music more inclusive and bringing it back to being a community experience, like like your love riots for example.

Well that's it, man, The love riot is one of the things that I dreamed, and it's a vision that I got in a dream from the creator to do this communal aspect of music at every show, and even before we did it at shows, we did it in the subways and street corners in New York City. We leave Juliart. We all, you know, at the time the

band was predominantly from Juliart. My classmates and I would go down the subway and play for people in the arame thirties, thirty minute concert, thirty minute performance, whatever you want to call it, not asking for money, just getting people to to to to feel that vibration. Eventually we do that. Now we go to our shows, you know, the encore the show will be us jumping into the audience sometime in the middle of the show and the

encore jumping the audience. And then at some points at the time we will go to a venue and we will play the whole show in the crowd, and we would take the crowd from the venue, march out of the venue, march to another place, places where we wasn't even supposed to be, just like a coffee shop or just you know, a place that is is um generally quiet, like a library, will come in and then even now,

you know, nine times out of ten people will welcome us. Uh, you know, the idea of that and calling it a love right came from the different points in time where the gathering would be close to a thousand people just just spontaneously gathering on the street, and it would look like a riot because they would start chanting and screaming one more song and dancing and just you know, the energy of that cause police to even come. Sometime once we're in the Lower East Side and police came on horseback.

But but anyway, you know, they came and then they realized, oh, it's just and then sometimes they would even get into it. Even at the at the Black Lives Matter protest the day after the new NYPD had um someone from their ranks run into a crowd of people um it with

the car. We went out there and we did a love riot the next day and we had police officers with us that were dancing along with us, standing next to David and I in the band and everybody like it was you know, it wasn't It wasn't something that you would imagine looking at the news. So to me, we just want to use a love riot um as a way to bring love joint community wherever we go.

You know, you recently performed as part of the the ny Pops up event where you brought arts and music back to the streets of New York after, you know, playing for essential workers at fascination sites after a year of not a lot of music in town in New York? How is that experience for you? Ma? It was humbling

to see them. They do a lot of the work on the front lines that it's unimaginable think about the last ten months eleven months of work that they have to do, and just that a couple with everything else that they normally do year round, every day, day and

day out. Now you have this pandemic, and you have all of these different things that are happening with the economy and the shortage of materials to treat people, and all these things that are tremendous, And to be able to play music for them and get them to smile, get them to clap their hands, and and to be with us in that way, You know, it was less about me and how I felt, but more just about what the music and the power the music can do in a time like this. How is the last year

changed you as a person. I find that I'm more more conscious of taking things one day at a time, because there's always stuff that comes up every day. It's like a whole lot. It's a whole lot too. It's a whole lot of stuff to get through a day in in in COVID, even if you're healthy and you're able to use all of the resources that we have, um just to produce a TV show. Imagine people who are you know? We we we have it pretty great in that sense, and it's still a lot to get

through the day. Um to to to give myself grace and to give other people grace that we're in a time that um we we we really have to focus on on it one day at a time and not get too caught off. You strike me as a as as an optimist. Has that been challenged over the last year two? What keeps you feeling that that that good man, hopeful God? You know, I read the Bible and pray and try to stay close to God, and my faith is really important. I also find that people make me happy. Man.

I love talking to you, just your smile, the energy you have, the way that you bring care to the interview. You want to talk about the music and in the vision of all the things that I've been given and want to give back to people and then you're giving it to people through this performance and this show, and it's all I don't know, Man, I enjoy thatt me going and performing on stage, me going. That's why I

do the stuff, you know. Me Being able to connect with other people, even in this time makes me happy, you know what I'm saying, Even if it's virtual, even if it's a virtual interview or performance or a a panel or I don't know, just being able to connect and feel other people's spirit makes me happy. Thank you for saying that right right back at you. With with your your music and your your answers, I mean that there is a great part of I forget if it was a quote or if it was in the press

release for your album. He says something that really stuck with me. I've known for some things already, but there's so much more that I want people to know about. Man, what do you hope that people know about you with with this record? That we don't have to categorize people because people contain multitudes as the same goals. Let's de categorized. I thinking, let's look at music and look at that as a way, almost as an allegory to how we

can look at each other. Let's stop putting people in boxes. There's billions and billions of us throughout that have been created throughout the history of this plan, and none have been the same. None have not even twins, not even people who come from the same city, same block, same household, completely different souls. And that's really what it's all about. Music is you know very clearly what you were You

were put here to do and to give. Have you been feeling creative and in the last couple months in lockdowns, you've got a whole workshop in your in your house. Have you been writing a lot. I've been doing a lot of stuff that is creative, you know, just trying to connect with people again. I've been doing this thing, uh. I've been dancing on Instagram on Sundays, you know, with people around the world, which is you know, I never

used Instagram like this. I've never done like the live uh feed where you can go live and I just had this idea again. It just came to me one day, where oh I can do a dance, a one on one dance with people. So I danced with people and I play music on Sundays as a ritual to kind of connect and people have come from all over the world.

There's people from you know, peop from Israel, people from from Ghana, West Africa, people coming on from uh from New Orleans, my hometown, and then people coming on from India. Last week there was a guy on from India and Japan. I mean at different It's at three o'clock, so for them it's it's it's way late. But people still jump been on the thing. So that's actually been creative for me. It's inspired me in many ways doing things like that.

It's connecting in a new way. Yeah, finding it, you know, I'm looking for it. I'm searching for it, and and and that's what happened. It came to me and I I love it. Bringing those smiles. I'm always curious about and I'm thinking of someone like you who has just such a perfect blend of both the The link between music and comedy is really interesting to me because there's

so many of the same things. There's the rhythm, there's the timing, there's the inflection, like when you were playing that note before in multiple different ways, getting the same sound. That's to me, that's comedy. You can do that with a word, with a look, with a phrase, has your spot on on we're working with with Stephen Colbert, has that impacted your music in a funny way by by interacting with comedy more. Yes, Stephen Colbet is a genius.

He's incredible in terms of what his capacity is. He can think of and execute on many different levels at the same time, and that's what common he is. You're dealing with your engagement with the audience, your engagement with your your your counterparts on stage, your engagement with the material, whether it's scripted or as improv um, and your your

engagement with yourself. You know, you think about things that you've seen, thinking about how you feel in the moment, how you want to channel all of your life's experience and culminating to that moment and be funny and connect and and you know, watching him do that all the time, and watching all the folks will come on the show, it's really been a great, great infusion into what I bring to the table, which is already a synthesis of

so many different things. I know. The future is something that you said that that's really what you're looking for in your looking towards when you're when when you're writing, bringing all your influences both musical and just life experiences to the to bear. Looking to the future, What's what's

next for you? What are you looking forward to next? Wow? Man, oh wow, There's so so many things that as a creative I'm always thinking about the future, and as a person, I'm taking it a day at a time, and I think as a creative I'm looking forward to you know, I'm writing a symphony right now. It's called the American Symphony, and it will be premiering at Carnegie Hall next year

in February and two. And um, it's a forty minute piece, four movements, and it has the symphony orchestra, It has a marching band, it has a chorus, and it has what I consider a new age rhythm section with electronic technological instruments along with acoustic instrumentation. And there will be

guests along with each performance. And I find that this kind of thing has really been something my head, in my head, um, and I'm glad I have the opportunity to really manifest because it's been in my head for five years or so. So that's coming next. But as we speak today, thing I'm looking forward to next is playing some piano working on this Beethoven Symphony. Uh this Beethoven sonata and uh learning all the sonatas. But um,

you know that's today. But in the future it's the symphony and also just more music, taking more of the black diaspora and and taking more of the indigenous folk musics of all cultures and de categorizing it. I cannot wait to see you're hitting here your symphony. That is unbelievable. Yes, it's it's it's I'm honored to have the opportunity to do this at Carnegie Hall. It's going to be an incredible experience for me, and I hope people get a

lot out of it. And I love Beethoven too. He's one of my favorite I love I love the rhythm of him. I love what he can do with with with rhythm, how he can do do a whole symphony. That's just it's playing with the inflections and rhythm of a fairly simple phrase. I think, gagle do gangle do gag do gay at the blues, oh my Beetho in the style of Ray Charles, come on, please do that. Oh man, John, thank you, it's been such a joy a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for sharing

your memories, your music. My my very last question, if you could snap your fingers and have everything go back to whatever your definition of normal is, say, say this time last year, what would be the first thing that you would do? Places you go, people, you'd hug, restaurants you'd go to, you know, whatever it is that what would be the very first thing that you would like to do. Well, already get to hug my lady Sulika, so that would be normal. Uh, she's been working and

I've been working. So I would go on a road trip together. She just put out a book, and uh, the album is coming out and then my album out we Are and that's all been very it's it's been working the quarantine. So I probably just would go on the road together and go on a road trip. Hopefully we'll get you out in the road. Since John, thank you so much. Just been such a pleasure. Really appreciate your time. Baby. Yeah, oh my god, please do that album,

Please do that album. You're the best man. Thank you, Thank you from bottom my heart. It's been really great talking. They really appreciate it. Yes, indeed, my brother, thank you very much. And I love love your album. I love your album. Hey man, thank you. We're putting a vibe on it. Deed do do dee do ah. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio, a production

of I Heart Radio. For more episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows, check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.