Jon Batiste Maps His Musical Upbringing in The Guardian’s Honest Playlist

Jon Batiste’s appearance in The Guardian’s “Honest Playlist” series is less a list of songs than a compact autobiography. The bandleader, composer and five-time Grammy winner traces a line from the Southern soul his father played to the jazz records his uncle sent him, then to the used CD bins of Blockbuster Video where his own taste began to assert itself.

The first song he loved, “Strokin’” by Clarence Carter, arrived through his father’s speakers when Batiste was far too young to understand the lyrics. That early exposure, he says, taught him something about the way music embeds itself before judgment can get in the way. It’s a logic that extends through his uncle’s package of jazz recordings and sermons, a combination that made music inseparable from spiritual study.

His first purchases were just as revealing. A used copy of Michael Jackson’s Dangerous, Björk’s Vespertine, Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun — three albums that have little in common except a refusal to sit inside genre lines. That’s pretty much the Batiste operating manual. “I don’t believe in song shaming,” he told the series, a stance that only cracks when Steely Dan enters the room.

The playlist arrives as Batiste’s profile continues to expand beyond the late-night TV stage. He won Album of the Year for We Are in 2022, and his recent work has pushed deeper into orchestral and experimental territory. The Guardian piece isn’t an announcement. It’s a reminder that his omnivorous approach has been there from the start, built from family, faith and a Blockbuster discount bin.