Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. I am so genuinely excited to bring you my conversation this week

with Grammy-winning musician and so much more than that really. John Batiste. You may have come to know John as the

bandleader effectively for Stephen Colbert on the late show on CBS. He

talks about how that gave him an entirely new platform.

But man, that's just the beginning of his story.

He comes from New Orleans, born really into jazz and blues royalty.

His family, there was a Batiste brother's band in New Orleans. He started playing with them

when his dad and his uncles at about the age of eight can play all the instruments you name it he can do it

Gets into Juilliard the prestigious Juilliard school in New York at age 17 by 18.

He's playing Carnegie Hall.

Forms a band called Stay Human.

Stay Human gets famous because what they would do, they call them love riots, they would just

walk up into a subway and start playing or walk into an intersection and start playing

and they would have people come along New Orleans style bringing New Orleans flavor to New York City

Got this reputation Colbert loved him asked him to be the band leader things really blew up for him and then two years ago at the 2022 Grammy Awards.

His album We Are was nominated 11 times.

He wins five Grammys including Album of the year and everything changes. By the way

for his latest album World Music Radio just nominated again

casually five more times for a whole bunch of Grammy.

So he is an unbelievable man and at the heart of his story

is his relationship, a love story with his wife, Suleika.

...