What Is Jon Batiste's Net Worth?
Jon Batiste is an American singer, songwriter, musician, bandleader, and television personality who has a net worth of $4 million. Jon Batiste won numerous awards for his work as a composer on the 2020 Pixar film "Soul," including an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Grammy, and he was the bandleader and musical director on the CBS talk show "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" from its 2015 debut until August 2022. Jon has recorded and performed with artists such as Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, Prince, Ed Sheeran, and Lenny Kravitz, and he plays the piano, melodica, bass, and organ. Batiste has released the studio albums "Times in New Orleans" (2005), "Jazz Is Now" (2013), "Social Music" (2013), "Christmas with Jon Batiste" (2016), "Hollywood Africans" (2018), and "We Are" (2021), and his band is called Stay Human. Jon is also the Creative Director of Harlem's National Jazz Museum and the music director of the magazine "The Atlantic," and he appeared as himself in four episodes of the HBO series "Treme" (2011–2013). In April 2022, it was announced that Batiste would make his big screen debut in the film adaptation of the stage musical "The Color Purple."
Early Life
Jon Batiste was born Jonathan Michael Batiste on November 11, 1986, in Metairie, Louisiana. Jon grew up in a Catholic household in Kenner, Louisiana, and his family is considered a musical dynasty. His relatives include the Olympia Brass Band's Milton Batiste, the Treme Brass Band's Lionel Batiste, and drummer Russell Batiste Jr. When Jon was 8 years old, he played drums and percussion with the Batiste Brothers Band, and he switched to piano at the age of 11. He learned piano by taking lessons and transcribing songs from popular video games, including "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Street Fighter Alpha." Batiste released the album "Times in New Orleans" when he was 17, and he attended St. Augustine High School and studied with Trombone Shorty at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. After graduating in 2004, Jon earned a Bachelor of Music (2008) and Master of Music (2011) in jazz studies from the Juilliard School. While attending Juilliard, Batiste released the album "Live in New York: At the Rubin Museum of Art" and was a featured performer in Paris, London, Spain, South Africa, and Lisbon as well as the U.S.
Career
In 2007, Jon produced and performed a show at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, and he taught classes, workshops, and music clinics in underprivileged schools and neighborhoods around the Netherlands. He later produced and performed a show at Carnegie Hall with six of the Netherlands' young musicians. In 2013, Batiste released the albums "Jazz Is Now" and "Social Music." "Social Music" featured his band, Stay Human, and it reached #1 on the "Billboard" Jazz Albums chart and #134 on the "Billboard" 200 chart. In 2016, he released "Christmas with Jon Batiste" and "The Late Show EP," which both peaked at #3 on the Jazz Albums chart. "Christmas with Jon Batiste" reached #198 on the "Billboard" 200 chart, and "The Late Show EP" reached #18 on the Heatseekers Albums charts. Jon's 2018 album "Hollywood Africans" reached #2 on the Jazz Albums chart, and in 2019, he earned his first Grammy nomination for his cover of the song "St. James Infirmary Blues." In 2021, Batiste released the album "We Are," which reached #25 on the "Billboard" 200 chart and earned him a Grammy for Album of the Year. The single "I Need You" reached #2 on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart, and "Freedom" peaked at #4 on the Digital Songs chart.
From September 2015 to August 2022, Jon Batiste and Stay Human were the house band on the Peabody Award-winning program "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," and they played alongside artists such as John Legend, Will Smith, and Billy Joel. According to Colbert, Batiste left the show to "pursue personal and professional interests." In 2020, Jon performed during a Juneteenth celebration in Brooklyn that featured protests, vigils, and marches to "celebrate, show solidarity, and fight for equal rights and treatment of Black people." Batiste collaborated with Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor on the music for the 2020 animated film "Soul," which won more than 25 awards, including an Academy Award. In 2022, Jon was nominated for 11 Grammys, winning five of them.
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Personal Life
Jon met future author/journalist Suleika Jaouad at band camp as teenagers, and they began a relationship in 2014. Jaouad was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2011, and in late 2021, she announced that it had returned. Jon and Suleika married at home in February 2022, and in a June 2022 interview with "People" magazine, Batiste stated, "It was just close family. It was one of those things that we did the day before her bone marrow transplant, it was a very deep time in our lives, obviously for so many reasons. All the time that we put into building this house — it's been three years that we've been renovating, building and finding furniture and doing all these things to make it just right, so it's a beautiful combination of all that." Jon also said that when he proposed to Suleika, he told her, "I just want to be very clear, I'm not proposing to you because of this diagnosis. It's taken me a year to design your ring. So, just know this timing has nothing to do with it. But what I do want you to know is that this diagnosis doesn't change anything. It just makes it all the clearer to me that I want to commit to this and for us to be together."
Batiste has participated in Black Lives Matter marches, and after the June 2020 murder of George Floyd, he organized peaceful protests against police brutality. Through his 2021 single "We Are," which features the St. Augustine High School Marching 100 and the Gospel Soul Children, Jon supports attorney/activist Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative. Batiste has also sponsored the initiatives the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Innocence Project, and The Legacy Museum.
Awards and Nominations
In 2021, Batiste won an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score) and a Golden Globe for Best Original Score – Motion Picture for "Soul." The film also earned him awards from the BAFTA Awards, Annie Awards, Black Reel Awards, Critics Choice Awards, Hollywood Critics Association, NAACP Image Awards, International Online Cinema Awards, Latino Entertainment Journalists Association Film Awards, Online Film & Television Association Awards, Society of Composers and Lyricists Awards, and numerous film critic associations. Jon has earned more than a dozen Grammy nominations, winning five in 2022: Best Music Video for "Jon Batiste: Freedom," Album of the Year for "We Are," Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media for "Soul," and Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song for "Cry." He also received a Primetime Emmy nomination in 2022, for Outstanding Variety Talk Series for "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."
