For years producers have been mining the records of Roy Ayers for samples. But unfortunately many Hip Hop fans don’t know much, if anything, about the man behind some of their favorite grooves. A new documentary, The Roy Ayers Project, plans to change that.
The film, part of a larger multi-media project, explores the music and legacy of Ayers through interviews with those who have been impacted by his work. Check out two brief previews of the film which feature Bobbito and ?uestlove expressing their reverence towards Ayers. ?uestlove even goes so far as to call him, “The godfather of progressive Hip Hop.” The Roy Ayers Project is set to be released in 2012.
Roy Ayers was born in Los Angeles and dabbled in numerous genres throughout the course of his career, from Jazz to Soul to Funk to Disco, while creating classic LPs such as Everybody Loves the Sunshine, Vibrations, and Music of Many Colors, a collaboration with Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. His work has been sampled dozens of times with Smiff N Wessun’s “Home Sweet Home”, Brand Nubian’s “Wake Up”, and 2Pac’s “Lost Souls” being just three examples.
