The Grammy winner sat down with Billboard News to talk about his artistic process and the new album.
Jon Batiste spoke with Billboard News to demonstrate his commitment to being an album artist. In the most recent episode of the show, the Grammy Prize winner sat down with Billboard to talk about his newest endeavor, World Music Radio, and to reveal his strategy for achievement in light of being a well acclaimed musician.
Speaking of World Music Radio, which came out on Friday, August 18, Batiste said he collaborated with composer Jon Bellion on the album, allowing numerous unintended themes to creep in.
The album has a theme of water. The five-time Oscar nominee told Carl Lamarre, Billboard’s senior director of R&B/hip-hop, “There are a lot of different themes that repeat, and some of the motifs were subconscious when we were recording it.
I once worked with the venerable Jon Bellion. He instilled in his kid this sense of how to live life, how crazy the world is, and just the idea of self-care—that sometimes all you need to do is take a moment to breathe.
And using it as a metaphor for my life, the struggles we’ve faced, and everything we’re attempting to build for this record is a mantra.
It could seem difficult to produce new music after the popularity of his 2021 album WE ARE, which brought him four of his five Grammy awards. However, Batiste said that the awards have no bearing on how he composes songs.
I truly produce bodies of art. The singles are insane, and that’s essential, but I’m an album artist from top to bottom. I produce collections of work and immersive universes, therefore that necessitates the use of people.
who not only understand how to relate to what is in the culture, reinvent it, and make it our own, but also speak to it via my voice and see that a world is being constructed that’s larger than just me,” he said.
In contrast to “trying to outdo any public perception or even in awards,” Batiste continued, the pressure comes from wanting to “build something that’s even more bespoke, even truer to my artistry that takes everything that I’ve done so far, synthesizes it, and adds to it.”
Listen to World Music Radio, which was preceded by the songs “Calling Your Name” and “Drink Water,” right now.
Watch the video above to hear the whole interview that Batiste had with Billboard.