Boy Hood

Album: We Are (2021)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song is the beginning of a three-part suite based on Jon Batiste's personal narrative. The three tracks speak of his "Boy Hood" (a play on "boyhood") in New Orleans, his musical upbringing and training on the instrumental "Movement 11," and finally finding his feet in his "Adulthood."
  • Maroon 5 keyboardist PJ Morton and jazz legend Trombone Shorty join Batiste on the song. The three all grew up in the same New Orleans circles and Batiste wanted to sonically capture the music played on the radio back then. It "was a mix of bounce and hip-hop," he told Relix magazine, "blending with the jazz that we were studying."
  • Batiste recruited fellow Julliard alumnus Jahaan Sweet to help him produce the track. The pair used to rap and make beats in the dorm together before Sweet carved out a successful career producing for the likes of Eminem ("Lucky You"), Post Malone ("Saint-Tropez"), and Drake ("Fair Trade"). "I knew that he could help me to channel the feeling of what it's like to live in the South," Batiste told Apple Music of the Florida producer.

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