Nicholas Payton is an American trumpet player and multi-instrumentalist. A Grammy award winner, he is from New Orleans, Louisiana. He is also a writer who comments on subjects including music, race, politics, and life in America.

As a leading voice in American popular music, the Grammy Award-winning Nicholas Payton is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, producer, arranger, essayist, and social activist who defies musical and artistic categories. All the while, he honors the tradition of what he terms “postmodern New Orleans music,” as well as the spirit of Black American Music, of which he states, “There are no fields, per se. There are lineages.”