You might have imagined that Jon Batiste’s triumph at the 2022 Grammy awards would be greeted with delight. He won more gongs than anyone else: five in total, becoming the first Black artist to win album of the year, for 2021’s We Are, in 14 years. Here was a virtuoso musician who existed on the margins of the mainstream – best-known as the bandleader on Stephen Colbert’s talkshow and the author of the “user-friendly jazz songs” from the Disney film Soul – hoisted into the spotlight by dint of his talent alone.
