JonBatiste

Jon Batiste was born in Metairie, Louisiana in 1986 into one of New Orleans' great musical families — the Batiste family has produced musicians for generations. He showed prodigious ability from childhood and enrolled at the Juilliard School in New York, where he developed his extraordinary technique while maintaining the soulful foundation of his New Orleans upbringing.

He became widely known as the bandleader of Stay Human on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a role he held for years and which demonstrated his gifts as an entertainer, improviser, and musical communicator. His performances on the show were consistently remarkable for their musicality and joy.

His album We Are (2021) was a commercial and critical triumph, winning five Grammy Awards including Album of the Year — one of the most decorated nights in recent Grammy history. The record demonstrated the full range of his ambition and musical intelligence, drawing on jazz, R&B, soul, and pop in service of a deeply personal artistic statement.

Batiste is also the composer of the score for Pixar's Soul (2020), for which he won an Academy Award. He remains deeply connected to New Orleans, performing in the city regularly and speaking about the city's musical tradition as foundational to everything he does.