JON BATISTE

PAST WINS album of the year (We Are), best score soundtrack for visual media (Soul), best music video (“Freedom”), best American roots song (“Cry”), best American roots performance (“Cry”) (all in 2022)

NOMINATED THIS YEAR album of the year (World Music Radio), record of the year (“Worship”), song of the year (“Butterfly”), best pop duo/group performance (“Candy Necklace”), best jazz performance (“Movement 18’ (Heroes)”), best American roots performance (“Butterfly”)

Why does democracy matter? Why does recognition matter? Why does acknowledgment matter? Why does the idea that someone who exists in a narrow corridor of humanity, creating music and songs and videos and performances — why does the acknowledgment of that matter, in a democratic process through peer recognition and achievement? If we throw all that out — if that doesn’t matter — there are greater questions of what matters and doesn’t that we need to address.

It’s important for us as a community to acknowledge each other and our achievements, even if we don’t all agree on what they are or what the metrics of that should be. Ultimately, I encourage communities of artists who disagree. It’s important. There’s room for us to have debate about what deserves recognition and [how that’s measured]. But at the end of the day, we need a democracy, and we need to back the achievements of folks. That’s a ritual that goes back millennia, and that’s part of how we continue to build and understand what’s important and signify to future generations what we deem important.