"We are the chosen ones," Jon Batiste announced in the title track to 2021's We Are, which would sweep the following year's GRAMMYs. Now, it's clear who "we" are. And there are no boundaries.

"Love Black folks and white folks," he declares in the exultant "Be Who You Are," from his new album, World Music Radio. The track features the American rapper J.I.D, the ascendant K-poppers NewJeans and the Colombian singer Camilo. "My Asians, my Africans, my Afro-Eurasian, Republican or Democrat."

What should be an obvious stance — that we're one human race, and can dignify and respect each other across our differences — isn't so obvious in 2023.

"It's radical today to love everybody," Batiste told The New York Times in an interview about World Music Radio — out Aug. 18 via Verve Records. "We are in a time that there's more of a pressure to make people into the other, and to dehumanize them in the process.

"But the act of removing a certain baseline of humanity in how we approach living amongst each other, that should be radical," the five-time GRAMMY winner and 14-time nominee continued. "That should be the thing that is disruptive."

Accordingly, World Music Radio is charged with a spirit of true inclusivity; it dismantles the echo chamber. Presented in an airwave-style format like a globetrotting The Who Sell Out, World Music Radio presents a dizzying number of perspectives and styles, from East to West.

This widescreen vantage has always been central to Batiste's art. Even his "solo records" have a jubilant, communal lift.

We Are dealt heavily in the concept of "social music," which directly connects to his roots in New Orleans — whose gumbo of cultural cross-currents changed everything. Plus, his bird's-eye view of Black musical traditions made him a shoo-in to create the music for Disney/Pixar's 2020 film Soul.

The various streams of his career intermingled — and seemed to come to a head — with 2022's American Symphony, which premiered at none other than Carnegie Hall.

For this hyper-ambitious work, Batiste took inspiration the game-changing partnership of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn was a lodestar. "They consistently synthesized cultural lineages through the lens of a pluralistic and noble worldview," he wrote in the program book.

This description applies to Batiste too. During that multitudinous musical presentation, he addressed America's cultural multitudes through a commingling of African diasporic traditions — Caribbean, Brazilian, Yoruba, Haitian, Creole.

Accordingly, it featured everyone from banjoists and steel drummers to Afro-Latin percussionists and Indigenous vocalists and drummers.

World Music Radio emanates from that headspace. It begins with an introduction from our host — a cosmic entity named Billy Bob Bo Bob, transmitting the sounds of Earth to an interstellar radioland.

"He's a D.J., he's a griot, he's a storyteller, he's a unifier, he's a rebel," Batiste told the Times of Billy Bob Bo Bob. He cited the word again: "He's a disrupter."

From there, World Music Radio charges out of the gate with the exultant "Raindance," featuring the South African house duo Native Soul. From there, Batiste funnels his vision through a wildly diverse crew, from Rita Payés ("My Heart") to Kenny G (a saxophone version of "Clair de Lune") to Lil Wayne ("Uneasy").

Back to "Be Who You Are," that aural hug to everybody, no matter their background or station in life. That seemed to be Batiste's dictum to all involved: let your personality fly, and don't sweat the differences.

Because differences aren't merely acceptable. They're at the root of all compelling art, and the only way to move past throttling divisions. If you feel it's time to cast away borders and delineations, Batiste's latest offering is for you: do not adjust your dial.

Here's What Went Down At The World Premiere Of Jon Batiste's American Symphony At Carnegie Hall