After a career spent rewriting the rulebook, Jon Batiste rips out a few more pages with BIG MONEY, his most immediate and visceral record yet. Following the chart-topping success of Beethoven Blues, which reimagined classical music through a soulful, inclusive lens, Batiste pivots again. This time digging into the dirt of Americana with a groove-heavy, genre-blurring manifesto about capitalism, connection, and collective joy.

Written and tracked mostly live over just two weeks, BIG MONEY is messy in the best way: loose, raw, and pulsing with humanity. Co-produced with Dion “No ID” Wilson, it’s an album that prizes spontaneity over precision, capturing the kind of unfiltered energy that’s increasingly rare in pop music. And that’s exactly the point.

At the center is the title track, a rallying cry disguised as a revival anthem. Inspired by a post-show epiphany at the Ryman, it finds Batiste strapped to a guitar and backed by retro-soul wizard Nick Waterhouse and the powerhouse harmonies of the Womack Sisters, granddaughters of Sam Cooke. What starts as a swaggering groove blooms into a meditation on ambition and identity. “Mama says, ‘Don’t be a dummy, everybody chasing that big money’” — a lyric that cuts like a proverb and dances like a hook.

“This is the circus of love,” Batiste says. “You don’t lose your soul—you gain it.” That tension, between striving and surviving, between joy and resistance, anchors the entire record. Whether channeling blues, gospel, reggae, or stripped-down balladry, BIG MONEY folds it all into what Batiste calls “New Americana,” a sound rooted in tradition but speaking to right now.

Guests like Andra Day and Randy Newman add their voices, but the real stars are the songs themselves, each track feeling like it was caught mid-flight rather than sculpted in post. There’s a warmth, a humanness, that mirrors the message: in a world chasing polish and profit, maybe it’s the unvarnished moments that matter most.

Earlier this year, Batiste brought that same soul-stirring presence to the Super Bowl with his powerful rendition of the National Anthem. He also added two more Grammy wins to his shelf, including Best Music Film for American Symphony and Best Song Written for Visual Media for “It Never Went Away.”