Jon Batiste has created something completely fresh with his latest album, World Music Radio. The carefully crafted title expresses a new way of thinking about the heretofore genre of “world music,” and it also expresses the concept of the album as a radio format. But Batiste has an even bigger vision for what the album can do. “It's really a movement of radical love and radical oneness, and thinking of how to manifest that as a way to not only present a live show, but for causes in the world,” Batiste says in his interview with The Current’s Ayisha Jaffer.

Use the audio player above to listen to the complete interview, and read a transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Ayisha Jaffer: Well, what's up? I'm hanging out with a living legend Jon Batiste. Thanks so much for hanging out with us!

Jon Batiste: Hello, how are you feeling?

Ayisha Jaffer: I'm feeling good. How are you feeling?

Jon Batiste: I'm good. (sings)

Ayisha Jaffer: Yes! Well, I'm so excited — World Music Radio is out. And it was about a year ago, almost to the month that you left The Late Show, and I'm wondering, did that give you more space and a different way to like, narrow in on your art in the creative process of making this album?

Jon Batiste: Oh my goodness, the time in my life where you have a transition from one season to another was happening for me in this moment. And I really created something that was of the season that I'm still in. It's a beautiful change of my life changing in many ways: leaving the show, my friends on the show; getting married — my wife was also sick at the time we got married, and overcoming that was a big part of the catharsis of this project beginning; and us traveling the world together after her coming out of the hospital and really creating something that was so liberated from so many things, both in terms of rhythm of life things, and also in terms of creatively expanding on my concept of genre-lessness even further.

Ayisha Jaffer: Wow, that's beautiful. Also, congratulations on getting married.

Jon Batiste: Oh, my goodness. Now we, we in there! I'm loving it so much. I highly recommend it.

Ayisha Jaffer: I just got married a month ago. So I'm with you.

Jon Batiste: Oh, yeah!

Ayisha Jaffer: Yes! Well, we’ve got to talk about world music. So "world music," that term and its importance and how you define it, I think is so perfect. And I'm hoping you can share your view on world music for our listeners.

Jon Batiste: Oh, of course. I think all music is world music, right? If you think about this idea of what "world music" has meant, as a genre category, it’s really, it's a kind of Western paternalistic thing. It's this idea that oh, anything outside of the United States or Europe is othered and is put in this category of "world music," which is like “the rest of the world out there.” Others. So I think that's bad, of course, and marginalizing, of course, but it's such a deep term, if you can reimagine it and use it as a springboard, thinking about all of the music of the world as one and the radical oneness and unity of sounds and peoples and rhythms, culture, really representing people in our collective wisdom and the best of us. How can that be a prompt to create really limitless art? And that's exactly what we aim to do with this record.

Ayisha Jaffer: I love that. Getting rid of the boundaries of that ideology really. 

Jon Batiste: Yes.

Ayisha Jaffer: Well, I also heard — I love this — like, near the end of your album process, you came up with this concept — and of course, I'm a radio host, so I love it — your alter ego of Billy Bob Bo Bob, this otherworldly all-knowing being, interstellar being. I'm just wondering what was like the lightning-rod moment where, because it was near the end of the creating, that you were like, "Wha! This is what we need to do." 

Jon Batiste: I'm really a binge creative. You know one of those things, I've always created on these different axes and it doesn't reveal itself to me what a thing is, often until the last quarter. I'm doing this album, for instance, and at the same time, I'm writing a symphony that premiered in this period of time; people will soon hear the symphony as well. But I was doing this idea of kind of building things that don't typically fit together. In the symphony, we have modular synthesizers, and marching band musicians, and musicians from Venezuela and musicians from Native American Indigenous music traditions. Then in the album, same kind of thing was happening. And this idea of what was going on between these two projects, I just was figuring out, "Oh, how does this fit in the symphonic context over here? How does this fit in an album context of American popular music traditions over here?" And both came to me in a similar way; with the symphony, it was like I was writing it until we did the premiere, in the backstage maestro suite. And with the album, nine months in, I had an epiphany: Late night, after working on the album, this whole story just drops in my head of Billy Bob Bo Bob — not just this character, who's my alter ego, but of a world like I saw a movie. I was seeing it in my mind's eye. I was seeing the world he's in, the station, how the album — it's called World Music Radio because it's not just a title of a concept, but it's a radio format. You're listening to the album from top to bottom as if you're listening to a format that you would produce. So it was such a deep moment, it's hard to even explain other than just this kind of lightning-strike epiphany moment.

Ayisha Jaffer: Yeah. Well, I mean, I like my job, but I would love to join your radio station at some point in the future! I love this beautiful visual that you've created as well. I love the headphones and everything, the music videos, I kind of see just a glimpse on what you're seeing. And I think that's beautiful.

Jon Batiste: Well, thank you so much for it. You gotta come by, you got to do us a segment!

Ayisha Jaffer: I'm down! Well, "Call Your Name," we've got to talk about because we're playing that, we're thrashing that here at The Current. It has so much joy, there's so much joy in that song. And I have to ask what ignited like the idea behind that? And it because it's still like interstellar in a way as well, which I really love.

Jon Batiste: Well, there's a thread of the interstellar and speaking to those extraterrestrials out there. In the whole album, that's, you know, sometimes it's an undercurrent; other times, it's at the forefront. And "Calling Your Name" is one of those tracks that is, you know, in the first third of the album, if it was three movements the album kind of goes through, "Calling Your Name" as at the end of this first third of the album, where you're coming from what feels like a Saturday-night dance party in some interstellar region of the galaxy, and you're reaching this point where this song, it's just so joyous and it's buoyant, and it brings you to this place that kind of cleanses you; you dance yourself clean. And I love that! I feel like that's what we were really trying to create. Even before we knew the whole vision of the album, it was just like, it was something that was pulling us. The momentum of the project was pulling us to what it eventually became.

Ayisha Jaffer: I feel like, when I'm hearing this, I'm thinking of Billy Bob Bo Bob, and like creating that gold record that you send out into space that one day might be taken into this other world. I really, it's just making me think of that, like this is like a timeless piece of like a message of connecting. And I think connecting is really the through line to a lot of the work that you do. Because I know you do these love rides, where you're bringing music to people on the street, then you made a whole album with Stay Human that was in the subway system directly with people, and then this album just completely brings in community and connection. And I'm just wondering how you're hoping, how are you hoping it inspires people to connect, or what you foresee that message kind of being spread?

Jon Batiste: Yes, yes, if you're thinking about things in a genre perspective, you'll miss it. Or if you're thinking of it as a world music album, or as something that fits in even a category of just music, you're missing it. It's really a movement of radical love and radical oneness, and thinking of how to manifest that as a way to not only present a live show, but for causes in the world, using the album, using these songs, to power things that happen in the world to really bring people together. You know, there's been already just a range of things. It's so moving to me to see kids singing, whether that's them singing "Butterfly" [co-written with Dan Wilson] and creating different content around songs or initiatives around the song, "Drink Water," bringing clean water to different places around the world.

The idea of what we're doing is so much more than just the songs. And the songs have such a power, as we know, songs have a tremendous power. So my belief has always been what can we use that power to do? That's what Stay Human and Social Music, for the last decade or more of my whole concept has been about: How do we use these superpowers in real time in the world? And not just for entertainment. Of course, it's entertaining and fun. But how do we expand beyond just that prism?

Ayisha Jaffer: Yeah, it's one of the ways that you're inspiring as a role model, because you're not behind anything. You're right in front; you're out there. And I love that, and this kind of blows my mind: I think I understand that you've never toured before. I mean, and so can we expect that a tour is going to happen? A World Music Radio tour?

Jon Batiste: Oh my goodness, I'm excited to see everybody out there. I've played shows and been around the world in different ways but never toured.

Ayisha Jaffer: Oh my goodness.

Jon Batiste: I've had so many different — it's crazy, right?

Ayisha Jaffer: Yeah!

Jon Batiste: I think about that and it's just, you know, it really is insane. I'm thinking about the times that I've been privileged to meet everyone who's supported me over the years and to make new friends, and a tour just seems like, you know, I would definitely stay connected because there's some things in store on that front; just, you know, I leave little hints on IG and then social media, but, you know, we'll make some big announcements soon.

Ayisha Jaffer: Okay, I won't pry you for them. I think it's a blessing that the world is going to see you and on this tour. So I'm very excited. Very excited to have you here. Is there anything else you want our listeners to know before I let you go?

Jon Batiste: I love y'all out there. Keep doing your thing. I love it. I love it so much. I'm glad to be able to share a piece of my life with you, and hopefully, it continues to enrich your lives out there.

 Ayisha Jaffer: Thank you so much, Jon Batiste, for hanging out with The Current. World Music Radio is out now.

Jon Batiste: Yes, indeed. Bye bye. Congratulations!

Ayisha Jaffer: Thank you. You too!

External Link

Jon Batiste - official site