Jon Batiste is turning to music to confront the climate crisis, using his new album Big Money to rally listeners, especially younger audiences, to action. Blending personal history with global urgency, the Grammy, Emmy, and Oscar winner delivers a powerful message in tracks like Petrichor, a dance anthem warning of the planet’s peril.
Celebrated US musician Jon Batiste wants to use his music to fire up listeners to act against climate change, naming his new album after what he sees as the root of the problem, Big Money.
The track Petrichor in particular is a call to arms for a younger generation who may have turned their backs on mainstream news and analysis about global warming.
"It was a warning set to a dance beat," the Oscar, Emmy and Grammy award-winning artist told AFP.
"You know, it's not just saying 'this is a problem,' but it's also saying we can solve it, and it's important when you're changing the world, (you) have a good time while you're doing it."
As well as the influence of his climate activist mother Katherine, it was the experience of Hurricane Katrina which devastated Batiste's native New Orleans 20 years ago that inspired him to advocate for the environment through his music.
He has previously recounted fleeing New Orleans when Katrina hit the city, claiming more than 1,000 lives and resulting in a humanitarian disaster blamed in part on poor preparedness by federal authorities, and followed by a botched response.
"There's so many people who were displaced and never came back, and the city of New Orleans is really built around the spirit of the people," said Batiste, 38.
"I think about even going back to Hamilton Street in the houses we were growing up in."
His mother said that all her family lived in the city ravaged by flood water during a natural disaster experts said was made worse by climate change.
'Burning The Planet Down'
"The home that I grew up in, it was destroyed. All my sisters, brothers, my family, their homes were destroyed," said Katherine.
"And so some came back and renovated. One had to rebuild, and then a few of them didn't return, so they relocated permanently. So everything was lost."
Even 20 years on, swaths of New Orleans remain abandoned and the city's new flood defenses reportedly face being overwhelmed by the impact of climate change.
Batiste said the experience of Katrina and the aftermath should be a wake-up call for all nations, not just the United States.
"It's something the whole planet needs to be worried about. And it can happen anywhere. New Orleans is one place that that can happen, and we've seen it happen, and that should be a warning," he said.
"There's many places where this is happening. You see all the different things that the weather patterns are doing that are abnormal... and it's because of the pollution blanket that's around the planet."
His song Petrichor, written in a tour bus as Batiste crisscrossed the US, is unflinching in its diagnosis of the situation, and the risks of inaction.
The title of the track comes from the pungent scent that typically follows rain on dry earth.
"They burning the planet down, Lord," goes the track.
"No more plants for you to eat."
Batiste also points to research proving that less wealthy people and people of color are worst affected by climate change and pollution.
"There's an overwhelming majority of people that believe in clean energy and believe in the power of what we know to be true when switching to these new technologies, how that can shift and change all of our lives and save all of the things that we love the most," Batiste said.
"People have to think about how all of the democracies are set up, which is based on raising your voice and insisting and voting the right people into office."
By Gregory WALTON
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