Jon Batistecould not have been working with a fuller plate.
“We had food deliveries coming in and out,” he says, chuckling.
“This is like, around the clock.
“Protest music, in our time, has to look and feel different than it did in the past,” says Jon Batiste.Credit: Universal Music Group
“I prefer that they leave an imprint on each other,” he says.
It’s all one world within myself.”
The world had plenty on its plate in 2020, butWe Areis a record that licks that plate clean.
How did it feel to embrace more genres on the record?
JON BATISTE:It felt really, really natural.
Once you get to a certain point as an artist, you’re comfortable exploring things.
How important was it to work these specific references into the story you wanted to tell withWe Are?
Are there any connections between the two for you?
But the dirt is still there.
That’s something that I like to represent in my music.
There’s music for everything in New Orleans.
There’s people who understand what music goes with what food goes with what dance.
You spent a lot of time marching with the Black Lives Matter movement this past summer.
Are there moments onWe Arethat remind you of that time?
When you listen to it, all of those tracks are infused with that energy and that spirit.
How did 2020 change your understanding or definition of protest music, and what you might do with it?
Protest music, in our time, has to look and feel different than it did in the past.
We’re fighting a different beast.
Right now, we have a lack of knowledge of who we are.
It leaves us open to manipulation.
It’s more of a spiritual practice.
I think that that’s harder to put into a song.
It’s more in the intention of the musician, and the way that is presented to the people.
That might not always be marching in the street.
It’s something that I feel like we’re still defining for ourselves.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
