My Life in the Sunshine

June 27, 2022
Musician and entrepreneur Ayers explores the intricacies of race and belonging in his penetrating debut, a reflection on his career and his father. Born in 1972 to a white mother and Black father, Ayers struggled early on to feel like he fit in, a feeling compounded by his estrangement from his father, Jazz composer and producer Roy Ayers. Even still, Ayers cultivated a deep passion for music while growing up, eventually carving a space for himself in the industry, landing an internship at PolyGram Records and touring across America with his band, the Lemons, in the early 1990s. At age 34, with the encouragement of his therapist, Ayers had his first real conversation with Roy, a talk that ultimately put him on a path to healing and a discovery that he wasn’t Roy’s only child. Learning about his roots, and how his ancestors had been enslaved, allowed Ayers to find a sense of identity and peace. “For the first time in my life,” he writes, “I was directly connected to my Black ancestors.... And for the first time in my life, I could claim my Black side without self-doubt, without hesitation.” Rather than offer a simple tale of reconciliation, Ayers dives into complexities of race, identity, and family and surfaces with a probing story of finding home and self-acceptance. This is a true delight.