Jon Batiste's reimagined Super Bowl anthem highlighted wife's painting and set stage for new music

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Jon Batiste transformed the Super Bowl stage into a symphony of creativity, debuting new music, reimagining “The Star-Spangled Banner" and shining a global spotlight on his wife's creative vision.

As Batiste performed the national anthem Sunday, the multi-talented musician played a piano adorned with a colorful butterfly painting by his wife, Suleika Jaouad, who came up with the idea while making their documentary “American Symphony.” Her artwork, the city’s resilience after the New Year’s attack, and the memory of his late veteran grandfather all fueled his performance.

“This was powerful. The spirit came over me,” Batiste told The Associated Press after his performance at the Caesars Superdome. On Monday he unveiled “My United State,” a two-track project featuring “Star-Spangled Blues” and “Notes from My Future Self."

“It’s the first time in the history of the anthem that had samples included in it,” said Batiste, a Louisiana native who is a Grammy and Oscar winner and former bandleader for the “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” “We almost couldn’t clear the main sample that I wanted until the night before.”

Batiste, 38, said his reinvented national anthem draws from “Drag Rap” by The Showboys — better known as the Triggerman beat — a staple of New Orleans bounce and hip-hop culture. He aimed to showcase the city's rich culture and heritage while putting his own stamp on a song that was first echoed at the Super Bowl in 1967, performed by The Pride of Arizona, the Michigan Marching Band and the UCLA Choir.

Over the years, the anthem has been reimagined by music legends like Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, Billy Joel, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga.

“It’s a lot of pieces to the puzzle,” he said. “They all come in different tempos and melodies. It’s a whole lot of things that wouldn’t never work together unless it was framed by the American ideal. I wanted to capture it in an arrangement. Just in the sound.”

In an AP interview, Batiste reflected on his wife’s resilience, new songs, an upcoming tour and his festival this weekend that will leave a lasting musical impact on New Orleans.

During the filming of “American Symphony,” inspiration struck — not just in the documentary, but on canvas. As Jaouad painted, one creation that took flight was a vivid butterfly, embodying what he calls the “power of resilience, delicate beauty, and grace.”

Jaouad's painting was on the piano and bench Sunday.

“It's the balance of this duality,” he said about watching his wife creatively express herself during “American Symphony,” which won a Grammy for best music film. “It Never Went Away” from the documentary also won best song written for visual media. He's thankful for the collaboration and proud of Jaouad, a writer who is battling cancer for a third time.

In December, she revealed her diagnosis on social media.

“She's a one of a kind human being, like a person who has so much light from within,” Batiste said. “You look into her eyes and you see the work. I'm very glad that she was able to not only survive, but have this alchemizing process of it all to lift it into something that's even more than just a way of making lemonade out of lemons.”

He added: “This is more than just taking a bad thing and making it good. It's almost a blessing, as wild as it is to think about it like that.”

While crafting “Notes from My Future Self,” Batiste had three things on his mind: returning home, the national anthem and the wide-eyed wonder of him at 6 years old.

“It really brought together so many things in my subconscious,” said the seven-time Grammy winner. "It brought them together, like all these stories, notes. What would the young me think about what’s happening now and how to really connect to this moment from their inner child plays in this song? It just came out of that.”

Batiste called the upbeat song an anthem that represents self-empowerment for himself and others too. He said making the song was a profound journey of artistic realization.

“When you hear the song and you’re listening, it’s me talking to my younger me,” he said. “But it could also be you, talking to young you. In a moment like this, it’s important for us to heal, to really thrive and be rooted in who we are. We have to go back to that kid.”

Batiste said the musical foundation came while talking to director Alan Ferguson, his frequent collaborator. He said they had a vision of using spoken word, poetry and hip-hop within the context of “radical cause, positivity and openness.”

“It’s a celebration of life,” he said. ”It's a natural intuition and the visual possibility and the evolution of me as an artist is just me going into this new zone. ... When it aligns like that, that's how I know it's the right direction."

After Batiste's Super Bowl performance, his next goal is creating visuals for “Notes from My Future Self" and hitting the road for a concert tour.

Full details have to yet been released, but he's looking to perform new music and songs from Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1),” which reimagined the iconic German pianist’s work.

“You really get a twofer on this next run,” Batiste said.

Before delivering the national anthem, Jon Batiste brought his signature energy to New Orleans’ 9th Ward, turning a neighborhood into a stage for joy and community.

His He Gets Us Presents Jon Batiste’s Love Riot Festival transformed the grounds of George Washington Carver High School into a celebration of music, hope, and action. The event also highlighted plans for a future sports field to serve local schools.

“I wanted to make something where we go to the places that are forgotten but are the foundation,” Batiste said. “They are the foundation of why we want to come to New Orleans in the first place and go to those communities.”

Batiste, alongside Sing for Hope, led 10 New Orleans artists in creating hand-painted pianos, scattered throughout the 9th Ward as an open invitation to the festival. After the event, these vibrant instruments will find permanent homes in schools and community centers, keeping the music alive long after the final note.

“They greatest thing we can do is serve and not take it,” he said. “It’s a holistic view. ... Yes, I’m honored to sing at the Super Bowl. I also want to leave something that impacts the community, my hometown.”

For more on the Super Bowl, visit https://apnews.com/hub/super-bowl

Super Bowl LIX Pregame performer Jon Batiste speaks during a news conference, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in New Orleans ahead of the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs. (AP Photo/Matt York)

Jon Batiste performs the national anthem before the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Jon Batiste performs the national anthem before the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Jon Batiste performs the national anthem before the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Jon Batiste performs the national anthem before the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Doug Benc)

Jon Batiste performs the national anthem before the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)