New song on climate change, by Jon Batiste

A song by American musician holding an Oscar and several Grammy Awards is part of the Big Money album and inspires the audience to mobilize

A member of a dynasty of musicians and activists, Jon Batiste uses art as an instrument of awareness and mobilization by choosing climate change as the theme of one of the songs of his new album; Check out the clip.

Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina devastated her hometown, New Orleans, American musician and activist Jon Batiste released a new song about climate change, begging people who act, raise their voice, insist and “vote on the right people.”

“As an artist, it is necessary to take a position,” said the Global Star in an interview with the International Coalition of Climate Journalism Covering Climate Now.

“We need to unite people. The power of citizens is a way of transforming the world.”

“(The Song) is a” Beat “dancing warning,” said Batiste about the new song, titled Petrichor, which is part of his new album, Big Money.

The composer, winner of an Oscar and holder of several Grammy Awards, played Petrichoor along with his band during the interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r9UGVL8S-Y

The name of music on climate change: rain and the balance of the planet

The word “petrichor” refers “to the smell of the earth after the rain,” said Batiste.

“After a long time without rain the soil gets hot and dry, and then (with the rain} the balance returns.

At this moment we are unbalanced… the natural systems that support the planet’s life are threatened. ”

Repeating several times the chorus “they are burning the planet”, the petrichor music does not soften the dangers of climate change. But Batiste is optimistic.

“When you make a song, you want to inspire people, and also demonstrate what they can do. And the things we can do are really very simple.

Like clean energy technology, for which we can change right now. We can make the world moved by things that don’t destroy it. ”

“There is a blanket of pollution around the earth,” Batiste added, referring to the gases that warm the planet released by burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal and the cutting of forests.

“The summers are warmer, everything is hot, the climatic patterns are changing. No one wants that. And we know what the solution is.

There are a overwhelming majority of people who believe in clean energy… and they are changing to these new technologies. ”

Project 89 percent: World expects governments to act

The British Iornal The Guardian and other partners of the Covering Climate Climate Journalism Coalition Climate Now launched the 89 percent project, in reference to the fact that 80 to 89% of people in the world want their governments to take stronger climate action, according to several scientific studies.

Batiste confirmed that he is part of that climate of 89% -, like his mother, Katherine Batiste, who has done environmental work for the US government in Louisiana for most of Jon’s childhood.

She was beside him during the interview with Covering Climate Now.

“We believe in science,” Katherine Batiste said. “There you go,” Jon agreed, smiling. “You heard.”

Jon Batiste: Dynasty of musicians and activists

Many know that Jon Batiste comes from a historic music family in New Orleans – his uncle Lionel Batiste was one of the pillars of Treme Brass Band, and his cousin Russell Batiste Jr was a famous jazz drummer. But your family is also from activists.

His maternal grandfather, David Gauthier, was the leader of the Louisiana Post Office Workers Union and supported the 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike, which attracted Martin Luther King Jr to Memphis – where the leader was murdered.

Among other causes, Jon has acted in Black Lives Matter protests, a stance that his mother saw as a continuation of her father’s legacy. He believed in defending what is right, ”said Katherine Batiste,” and that kind of moved to me, and I passed Jon. “

“I was raised by amazing people,” said Jon, who spent seven years as a band leader at The Late Show With Stephen Colbert until 2022.

I saw my grandfather, my father, all these people who were in my immediate circle working and not discouraging. The secret is to continue, not look just for yourself or be regretting the situation, but find a way to do something with what you have and in the position you are in. ”

The album ‘Big Money’: Climate and Social Inequalities

Petrichor song illustrates the larger themes of its album Big Money, he added, because the search for money at all costs is putting the mood at risk. And not just the weather.

“We are at the richest time in human history, he said.“ Resources abound. However, there are people who do not have drinking water, clean foods and basic health care.

“And this is disproportionately affecting those in low -income communities, people in color. (When) most wealth is in the hands of only a small percentage of people, it will inevitably corrupt policies that can change this state of affairs.

This is what the music is really turned. There is a pollution blanket around the planet, but it is the result of a pollution blanket around our souls. ”

“It’s appropriate to be here in this place of worship,” Batiste about the scenario of the interview – the New York Middle’s Church, whose motto is “Just Love” – because “as Pope Francis said, the earth is our common house, a sacred planet, and we have to take our responsibility as guardians on the planet.”

Jon Batiste and Hurricane Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005, the storm and the breakdown of protective dikes left 80% of the city underwater, killed at least 1,800 people and led many others to let the city never return.

While those who were outside experienced the storm on television, as a media event, the Batiste family lived what happened.

Along with his mother, father, sister and grandmother, Jon went to Texas before the storm. But the family home where Katherine Batiste grew in the Carrollton neighborhood of New Orleans, she was destroyed, she said.

“All my sisters, brothers, my family, their homes were destroyed … They lost everything … It was devastating.”

“New Orleans, for me, is the soul of America,” said Jon Batiste, adding that what happened in the city “warned” that disasters caused by the weather can happen anywhere, and there are many places where it has happened.

Climate change and music: rhythm and poetry to point out solutions

The artist’s role in the face of such danger and injustice is to point out solutions with rhythm and poetry, ”said Batiste.

“How (jazz drummer) Art Blakey said, ‘music can wash the dust of everyday life’ and make someone apathy become careful, into action.

As an artist, you can connect directly to people-entertaining them, but motivating them to become aware that they have something to say, and that it is significant and powerful.

They will sing her at the show, and get out of there with the message in her heart. They will enter the voting booth and act. They will participate in the communities and act, and will live their lives aligned with her. And this is contagious. Go to the next person, and to the next person, to another person, and soon it’s the collective reality. ”

Although Petrichoor’s version on the Big Money album is a 2 -minute and 38 -second ‘Tapper’ species, the version Batiste played with its band a week before at New York Central Park was 11 minutes, electrifying the crowd.

Batiste, who has just started a 50 -show tour, said he plans to release a live album that will feature an equally extended petrichor version extracted from the upcoming Grand Ole Opry performances in Nashville and at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado.

“It’s important when you’re trying to change the world to have fun while doing it,” he said.

“I really want people to keep dancing and stay optimistic – but know that we have to mobilize”

This article is part of the Project 89 percent coalition Covering Climate Now and was originally published on The Guardian.

MARK HERTSGARD He is a journalist specializing in the environment of the American newspaper The Nation, co-founder and executive director of Covering Climate Now and author of several books on climate change.

THE COVERING CLIMATE NOW It is a global coalition of press vehicles dedicated to increasing and improving climate change coverage. MediaTalks is part of the coalition.