Recent Golden Globe winner Jon Batiste releases “SHOW ME THE WAY” featuring writer Zadie Smith. The R&B/Soul inspired fourth single is from his upcoming album WE ARE, set for release on March 19 on Verve Records/Universal Music Canada, the country’s leading music company. Listen to the song and pre-order the album here. Watch the accompanying visualizer BELOW.
Recorded at the Ed Sullivan Theater “SHOW ME THE WAY” features celebrated writer Zadie Smith in the most unexpected and delightful way, as a featured back-up vocalist. The song was written by Jon Batiste, Autumn Rowe and Kizzo and it’s a love letter to the artists that have musically inspired him and have laid the groundwork for him as a musician. The sound is a sonic throwback to the classic R&B/Soul songs of the 70’s and you can hear the influences from legendary artists like The Isley Brothers, Al Green, Stevie Wonder and The Stylistics just to name a few. The song is an R&B cruiser that takes you on a melodic trip for three minutes and forty seconds, so just sit back and enjoy – actually go ahead and just put it on repeat.
“Zadie and I have been virtually jamming from time to time during the pandemic,” says Batiste. “She’s quite an accomplished singer and after one of our sessions I asked her to sing on ‘Show Me The Way.’ She can also be heard at the beginning of the track asking me what I want to listen to. Just as it does in the lyric, we’d often talk about records that we both are listening to.”
© Louis Browne
Batiste recently won a Golden Globe for his work on the soundtrack for the Disney/Pixar feature film Soul – which is also on the Oscar and BAFTA longlists for Original Score. Additionally, Batiste is currently nominated for two GRAMMY Awards for his albums Chronology of a Dream: Live at the Village Vanguard and Meditations, in addition to two NAACP Image Awards for his contribution to the music in Soul.
On the performance front you can check out the TV debut of his hit song “I NEED YOU” as Batiste puts on a head turning “one man show” on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert here.
Batiste’s genre-blurring album WE ARE (March 19) represents a completely new sonic chapter for Jon Batiste. It presents a captivating musical experience to the world rooted in catharsis, joy, freedom, contemplation and sensuality. The album showcases guest appearances by Mavis Staples, Quincy Jones, Zadie Smith, PJ Morton, Trombone Shorty, St Augustine Marching 100, his father Michael Batiste, grandfather David Gauthier and many more. It is a meditation steeped in the sounds of the times with collaborators including POMO (Anderson.Paak), Ricky Reed (Lizzo), Jahaan Sweet (Drake, Eminem) and others.
Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, and Swing Time, as well as two collections of essays, Changing My Mind and Feel Free. Zadie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002, and was listed as one of Granta’s 20 Best Young British Novelists in 2003 and again in 2013. White Teeth won multiple literary awards including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award. On Beauty was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Orange Prize for Fiction, and NW was shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. Zadie Smith is currently a tenured professor of fiction at New York University and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
WE ARE – Track List
WE ARE
TELL THE TRUTH
I NEED YOU
CRY
WHATCHUTALKINBOUT
BOY HOOD feat. PJ Morton, Trombone Shorty
MOVEMENT 11’
ADULTHOOD feat. Hot 8 Brass Band
MAVIS
FREEDOM
SHOW ME THE WAY feat. Zadie Smith
SING
UNTIL
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