New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Five-time GRAMMY winner Jon Batiste's genre-defying album WE ARE has seen a major uplift in sales and streaming worldwide this week, as music fans sought out the record which won the prestigious title of Album of the Year. He has made history in the US, with the biggest post-GRAMMYS sales increase in the digital era, jumping 2,739% over the course of a week. Elsewhere, he has seen major streaming increases around the globe, with over 3000% uplift in China,
India and the Philippines since Sunday's ceremony.
Jon Batiste already has an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden
Globe and Critic's Choice Award thanks to his work on the score to Disney/Pixar film Soul. However, his GRAMMY-winning streak has served as a catalyst for other countries to discover this multi-talented musician and his genre-defying album WE ARE. His social media following has increased by nearly half a million across all platforms and he has accumulated new listeners in Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Brazil and the UK. Far from being the conclusion of a successful album campaign, this GRAMMY success marks the start of a new chapter for
Jon Batiste internationally.
In the US, Jon Batiste's WE ARE hit No.25 on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart, No.3 on the Billboard Top 200 R&B Album Chart and No.1 on the Current R&B Albums chart (Luminate). Additionally, his 2018 project Hollywood Africans claimed the No.26 spot on Billboard's Top 200 Jazz Album chart. In Canada, WE ARE reached No.1 on the R&B Albums chart and in Australia it hit No.1 on the ARIA Top 20 Jazz & Blues Albums Chart.
During the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards,
Jon Batiste staged an electrifying performance of his critically acclaimed song, FREEDOM. This track later racked up 15 international placements in the Spotify Viral Charts and 4 Shazam Chart placements. Following his monumental win for Album of the Year, Batiste gave an impassioned speech during which he described music as "more than entertainment" and called it a "spiritual practice."
One of the most prolific and versatile musicians of any generation,
Jon Batiste has spent his career bringing music back to where it started — with the people. Jon was born in New Orleans into the legendary Batiste family, and later studied at the world-renowned Juilliard School in New York City. There, he established the Stay Human band which became famous for their musical virtuosity and their signature street performances called "love riots." Batiste's skills as an artist, coupled with his social advocacy, quickly made him one of the country's most sought-out collaborators and performers, with appearances that include the GRAMMYs, Kennedy Center Honors, and the US Open.
Since 2015, Jon has been bandleader and musical director of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on CBS. In 2018, he received a GRAMMY nomination for Best American
Roots Performance and in 2020, he received two GRAMMY nods for albums he self-produced: Chronology of a Dream: Live at the Village Vanguard and Meditations (with Cory Wong). In 2020, Jon won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for the Disney/Pixar film Soul, an honor he shared with fellow composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Jon's work on Soul also earned him a Golden Globe, BAFTA, NAACP Image Award and a Critic's Choice Award. Jon is the second black composer in history, after legendary jazz musician Herbie Hancock, to win an Academy Award for composition.
Devoted to the education and development of emerging musicians, Jon has led his own Social
Music Residency and Mentoring program, sponsored by Chase, in addition to masterclasses across the world. He also serves as the
Music Director of The Atlantic and Co-Artistic
Director of the
National Jazz Museum in Harlem, in addition to being a board member for Sing For Hope.
Jon's latest studio album, WE ARE, was released in March 2021 to overwhelming critical acclaim. Subsequently, he was nominated for 11 GRAMMYs across seven different categories, a first in GRAMMY history. Jon went on to win five of those GRAMMYs including Album of the Year. The versatility of the album which was envisioned by Batiste as he processed the tumultuous times of 2020, earned him praise by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and more. During Carnegie Hall's 2021-2022 season, Batiste will curate a multi-concert series, which is set to include his American Symphony which serves as an homage to previous trailblazers who have made history at Carnegie such as Duke Ellington, Mahalia Jackson and Nina Simone.
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