Roy Ayers was a funk, soul and jazz composer. Born in Los Angeles, California he started his career as a post-bop jazz artist in the ‘60s and then went on to become one of the pioneers of the jazz-funk genre and one of the most important figures in the acid jazz movement in the following decades.

Roy Ayers is the artist with the most-sampled hits by rap artists in the history of the genre.

Ayers died on March 4th, 2025 due to a long illness. He was 84.