Seven-time Grammy and Academy Award–winning singer, songwriter, and composer Jon Batiste shares his perspective on music as a powerful force for human connection and social commentary – and why he believes creative community can help bridge all divides.  
Jon Batiste, Musician and Composer  

In conversation with: Adam Banicki, Editor and Head of Video, Fortune 

A New American Symphony

Conferences

Thank you, John, for being here. This is your first time at Davos for the World Economic Forum, uh, performing on opening night, which I think was aptly time for your new album or latest album, Big Money. How's your week been? What's, uh, what's been your learnings here at Davos? So many things. I, I'm, um, glad to be here at the USA House and, and, uh, to kind of process all of the learnings. I've been listening a lot. And the, the listening is definitely something that I, I see a lot of us doing here. I, I, I love the exchange of dialogue, the exchange of ideas. And just the thought of How we're really advancing general intelligence across every field, across the arts and culture, across the humanities, across technology, obviously, but the impact of that reverberating across everything else is, it's mind-blowing. It's, it's something that I don't think is precedented actually, even before with the industrial revolution, the agricultural revolution, all those different forms of change that we've seen, this is From hearing it now, truly unprecedented. Well, you bring up intelligence. A big topic of conversation this week has been artificial intelligence. You're a Juilliard trained musician. Uh, AI is changing the way we create. Uh, what are your thoughts on, on how AI is changing your industry? You know, I think that there's a certain sense of value that is being disrupted, which is the value of the human narrative, the human born person creating from their narrative, unearthing something from their expression in their life that feels universal but is deeply personal. And what is on the other side of that axis is the expression of something that is Hyper-intelligent and is referencing the whole history of human creativity, but it's not a human-born person and doesn't have the narrative or the, the whole combination of generations and intergenerational knowledge passed down through mentorship through a craft to an individual. Now, What we value is being challenge. I've seen people, particularly when I think about the examples in my industry, I'll think about the gospel music industry and people who have worshiped to a song that was created by AI or an AI song going number one, Christian music, right? And The realizing after the fact that it was created by an LLM and, and, and then having to the profound realization of having to, to, to negotiate how they feel about that. Do I feel violated? Does it matter? Is it something that because it was created by artificial intelligence, Did it sever my connection in that moment to the creator? This is a very profound question. It's a quandary. We have to figure out how we feel about that and what we value. It's another time of defining. And realigning our values, and that's the only way we're gonna be able to move forward productively together. And have you found yourself stumbling up on music that is AIA created and you didn't realize it at the beginning? I have a little bit of a, uh, I'm forming my opinion on that more and more. I've spent a lot of time, I've been blessed enough to spend time with folks who are really innovators in the field and, and a range of different views. Points and it's like a gumbo. I'm from New Orleans, so I gotta bring up gumbo. But this is the idea that there's this rich diversity of opinions and people are grappling with it and there's people who are on the uh the side of the spectrum of doomerism and people on the side of the spectrum of utopia and everything in between. And what I think about it so So much of what we create is the collective wisdom of generations passed on and on since the first drum, since the fiddle in Appalachia, since in my hometown, we have music for everything. There's music for when someone's born, music for when someone passes away. Music, in a nutshell, what I'm saying is music is more than just entertainment. It's a form of, of generational traditions being passed on. It's a form of lineage, it's a spiritual practice. So, I'm still forming my opinion about how I orient myself to This new reality, knowing that truth. Well, and music is a business too, yes, also entertainment. It can be both. Yes. Are, are you using AI in your work currently? Are you thinking about how you're going to use it in the future? AI has been used already. We just didn't call it AI. When musicians use auto-tune, uh, all of the DAWs, you know, these are, um, software that musicians use industry standard of creativity, Pro Tools, logic, all of the. The newer ones, even with sampling. There's a form of technological advancement that's been happening since the mid-seventies in the music, since we could multi-track, that's allowed us to do things that change the, the, the snapshot of a recording from a live performance to something that is produced. And we've been enhancing the tools that we use to produce these recordings. For decades. Now, every technological revolution leads to another genre of music. So, the question is, what is the genre of music that's to come from this and what is the value set of that genre? And It, it, it's a really interesting thing. I've been writing a lot about that in my journals. And with young artists that you see up and coming, like, uh, how do you, how do you recommend they navigate this? Uh, I mean, you've navigated an incredible career and, and the industry has gone through changes, it feels like it's always going through changes. How do you see that going forward? I feel that the, the, the best way is to be honest about Who you are, where you come from, and what you stand for. Everything else comes out in the wash. What's your true north? And, you know, a lot of times when I'm, I'm mentoring young musicians or, you know, I have, I have the the blessing of being able to learn from them because it's not, it's a, it's a two-way street. I always say we have to learn how to listen more. Yeah. The, the beauty of music is that it trains us. How to listen while it also is nourishing us. It feeds our soul and washes away the dust of everyday life at the same time as it gives us an insight into existence. It's a very existential and, and, and a very profound exchange when you have a deep, genuine experience with music. So you wanna always apply that frame to what you're doing. Now, if you do that by creating on an LLM or if you do that by creating on uh a broken upright in the corner of a ballroom. Both can have value. That's where I'm at right now. Yeah. So, um, switching feeds a little bit, you've successfully navigated ownership, branding, partnerships in an industry that, uh, at times can benefit creators, uh, but also exploit them. What's your philosophy around blending commercial partnerships with artistic integrity? I, I think that we have um A problem of, of equity, which comes down to ownership of the central resource of the industry, you know, it's, it's something that is It's an intangible thing because music is energy, music is frequency, and it emits intention and that intention goes out to people and it plants a seed in their subconscious and sprouts as ideas, as inspiration, make you wanna dance, make you wanna shake, what your mama gave you. All of that's happening. But we figured out ways to commodify it by putting it on an artifact like a vinyl and then our CD and now it's on streaming, and now that shifted the ownership of the asset to tech. And then there's a uh uh uh a shift that happened that was unexpected, so the music industry is still recovering from this, this, this shift that happened now two decades ago. So the artist is just in the balance of that, creating The, the thing, yeah. So you have to be savvy in order to really navigate what's happening and find a way out on the other side with equity and also with um a livelihood and a value set and a catalog that you're proud of. You have to really be, and you have been savvy throughout your career. How has your personal brand evolved? How have you have been flowed through this? Oh man, you know, as, as a fellow baller, we, uh, play basketball we just learned we, we both play basketball in Brooklyn. Yes, we play, and I'm, I'm, uh, proud to say I'm the Kenner Eagles teammate. We, we, we were the championship AAU team in 2003, and that was my last season playing. But I'll tell you what, from playing ball, you learn. Team interplay and dynamics, there's so many nuances there. There's so many unspoken things that once you learn to play, once you learn how to be together, even with a band and band culture, it's, there's an ESP extrasensory perception of Of what's gonna happen next, you have to anticipate a lot of things, you have to feel a lot of things to really be able to, to, to know. How you will react or what are the options of how to react. And that's how I've, I feel that I've done what I've been able to do. It's just a, a sense of study, but also a sense of really being able to build the muscle of anticipation and being rooted in something that I believe in. So, uh, building off of that, for years you were famously a, a sidekick, and I hear very close friends to Stephen Colbert. Uh, CBS is, is ending the Late Show, uh, this year, um. What do you think this means for, uh, for late night television and, and this iconic show that was in so many American households for so many years? Well, I think that Steven will be OK. He's a he's a very brilliant guy. And I think that for late night, one of the things I loved about my time there is We have this, this pipeline to people's living rooms and There's a point where it felt less political and it felt more like we were delivering culture to people. And that's what I'm gonna miss the most about it, which is this idea that you can speak to people. And talk about these things that transcend all of the mire of a division and and all of the isms as my mentor Alvin Baptiste said to separate us, but something that really gets the main line of the human soul and being able to put music out there like that in my early twenties, like, you know, when I was just coming out of college and Really being able to express something with a guy who was a uh he became family to me. We, we, we, uh we have Thanksgiving dinners every year for I was on the show for 7 years and we had dinner together every, every time we'd have a milestone on the show and then we'd have holidays, we would spend those together. He's just someone who really represented what he believed. Whether everybody on the staff even agreed with it or not, there was a uh integrity to it. And that's what I, I love about it as well, the cultural piece. And what these shows represent is, you know, it goes back to the first band. I remember Nat King Cole had the first variety show on television. And I thought playing songs from that era and playing songs from even before, playing songs from Beethoven to Nina Simone to Stephen Foster to to be able to play that and and and put that on the airwaves and have dialogue. This is something that we need more of, for sure, across the world, but definitely in our country. Would, would you ever wanna go back to a daily television show? Do you, do you ask me that all the time. I don't. What are you excited about? What's your next big collaboration, your big project? There's so many that I'm actually thinking right now to take space to decide how I wanna put my energy forward next. I've, I've, I'm in a phase as I'm here and, and as I am. All, all, all, all other places that I have the privilege of going to be around these people who have such knowledge, such rigor in their craft, such intellect, and, um, such heart. I'm listening, and I know that the thing that, that I'm supposed to do next that will have the greatest impact that is most rooted in my skill set and all of the things that I'm interested in will emerge from listening. And I encourage everybody to do that. Yeah. Uh, so you mentioned these shows that are in, in American, uh, households, uh, playing on TV sets. We are weeks away from the Super Bowl, one of the biggest events in, in American households. You sang the national anthem, uh, at last year's big game. Uh, are you excited for Bad Bunny to perform at the halftime show this year? Any advice for him? I love, first off, last year in New Orleans, we had the Super Bowl and I played and we were in. My hometown during Mardi Gras. Now, Mardi Gras is carnival time and that means anything that you know of or think about New Orleans times it 100. And then the Super Bowl was on top of that. So I, I, I, um, I'm so, so glad I was able to do that. That was an honor. And I think about how we played the night before in the 9th ward. We did A free concert and we gathered folks who were my mentors growing up, my peers growing up, my family, my dad, he played Cyril Neville, Ivan Neville, a lot of the musical families, we gathered together and we gave a free concert to people in one of the neighborhoods that's still not recovered from Hurricane Katrina. So it was a powerful thing and what I love about what Bad Bunny's done is that he's brought attention to his home in Puerto Rico. By creating this residency in the lead up to the Super Bowl, I really like that. I like that concept of giving back to where you came from, no matter how far you go from there, coming back. So, um, I really appreciate that. No, beautifully put. Uh, so we only have a few minutes left. Uh, so I wanna do some rapid-fire questions, uh, just to get your, your take. Uh, biggest musical artist to watch in 2026. Biggest musical artist to watch in one Olivia Dean. Olivia Dean, all right. uh, Spotify or Apple Music or other, other, other, oh, tell us why. I just like, first, I like listening to vinyl. Second, I like going to hear people play live. I think there's nothing that will ever replace the genuine human exchange of a live music performance and That goes for AI too. Um, but, but, um, I also feel that streaming, while it is an incredible gift to everybody out there who's a music listener, music connoisseur, anybody that's enjoying music passively, it's an incredible gift to have most of the history of music in your pocket. It's an extreme disservice to an artist who spends their life developing a craft to make less than one cent on a stream. So, I don't agree with that business model, and I've been able to circumvent that business model by the bobbing and weaving we've been talking about, but I still am a victim to it too because I'm on streaming services. But I also think that they do some great things, so I can't choose between one of them. I still got beef with both of them. Fair. Uh, and you can say yourself for this next one, Grammys are in 22 weeks. Uh, next week, next week, uh, you're nominated for 3. yes. Who's gonna be the biggest winner next week? Mm. So it's interesting, you've mentioned Bad Bunny. He has the opportunity to to be the first Spanish-language album to win Album of the Year. Which I think is an interesting thing to watch. If you think about putting an album out, that's a global success, and the majority of the population can't understand any of the words. Yeah. That's pretty deep, brother. That's a deep thing. That's like a profound, wow. That's a deep place the world has gotten. So I think that's interesting to watch. I think it's also interesting to watch Kendrick Lamar and From the time that he first started out and what he was and how he's evolved and how the world's evolved, it's an amazing journey for hip-hop music. Whether you like hip-hop or not, it's, it's something to watch and I would pay attention to that. That could be a very big night of validation for the form, 50+ years in in in in um the forms from since since the inception of the form. I think It's, it's, um, fascinating to watch country music and folk music and Americana, which is growing and growing and fusing more with Christian music, which is a deep alignment of values and sonic traditions, um, because gospel music and blues music and all of those musics are the same. I've been saying this for a long time, but it's all really the same in a spectrum or concentric circles, however you wanna see it, and the forms create each other. And they come out of dialogue with each other. So it's interesting to see how that's becoming more fused in a popular zeitgeist way. Um, it's deep this year too, you know, being nominated in Americana folk, um. It's, it's been a fascinating journey. I looked up and now I'm the 2nd most genre diverse nominee in the history of the Grammys. Quincy Jones is the 1st, he was my mentor. So I'm very proud of that. I wish I could call him, um, you know, when, before he passed away, I got a chance to sit with him and he would always tell me, it's up to you and your peers to de-categorize the music, to get it from the silos that it's in, and to, to expand it beyond. These terms that we use to organize them for marketing and for streaming. But, so it's, it's gonna, it's a lot of things to watch. I also think it's deep to watch the dominance of women in popular music. If you look at Sabrina Carpenter, well, basically, if you look at Taylor as the ocean and all of the rivers that come from Taylor Swift. It's an amazing, Taylor is like what disco was to the seventies. It's an, it's, it's deep to watch how that both sociologically and musically will reverberate over the next 20 years. Man, I just watch all of this stuff. It's interesting to me and I love being a part of it. Congrats on your, your three nominations for next week. We'll be watching. Um, my last question, Davos 2027, are you coming back? Man? Yeah, if I'm invited, it'd be fun. All right, thank you so much, John, for closing out our day, uh, at USA House in Davos with class and culture. Uh, I, uh, round of applause for John. Thanks, John. Thank you. That was fun.