Writer Nabil Ayers on biracial identity and his new book 'My Life in the Sunshine'

Even before realizing that Nabil Ayers is the son of jazz icon Roy Ayers, he's already a modern-era indie-to-pop crossover icon responsible for the increased visibility for acts such as Future Islands, Grimes, Lykke Li, and St. Vincent.

That is via his work as the president of the record label Beggars Group US, plus other imprints The Control Group/Valley of Search.

However, the uniqueness of his story — his mother, Louise Braufman, is a white former ballerina who chose to have a child with the famous Black jazz musician, agreeing that he would not be involved in the child's life — allows his June 2022-released memoir, "My Life in the Sunshine: Searching for My Father and Discovering My Family," to represent how to navigate interracial harmony without a familial compass.

Everything to me, from music to writing, is based around math and rhythm," says Ayers, who is also a journalist, before his Feb. 22, conversation at Grimey's Records in East Nashville with 2022 American Music Award Album of the Year winner Allison Russell.

He's spent much of his life trying to find the beats to fit the cadences of a life in incomplete synergy with his humanity. Nevertheless, he's succeeded at numerous jobs, including starting notable post-grunge indie record store Sonic Boom Records in Seattle a quarter-century ago, and has developed an impressive resume regardless of whether he's found complete connectivity with his upbringing.

Racial intersectionality and polarization in America are more impacting than ever. Thus, Ayers' story, involving '70s New York jazz, '90s Pacific Northwest grunge, and '00s indie rock, is significant.

Much of the 51-year-old Ayers' journey comes from a mid-life crisis of sorts.

"In the past decade of my life, after doing a '23 and Me' test and receiving my family tree, I wanted to know more about my father," says the multi-hyphenate creative.

Ayers is the author of several short stories published by GQ, The New York Times, NPR, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and The Root. Writing about each time he met his father precipitated the publication of a 320-page book.

"I wrote about a long lunch we had in Seattle as an adult, or meeting at a concert at the University of Massachusetts when I was 7 years old, or my mother's story of walking down the street and meeting him at 2 years old," he recalls.

How Ayers was raised is notable in the grander context of America battling with the perception of a "post-racial" reality contextualized against racial angst comparable to eras five decades prior.

"I grew up in places where being biracial wasn't weird and these scenarios were almost, like, incubated," says Ayers jokingly about his childhood spent in New York City, Amherst and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

From there, he evolved from going to schools where he "confidently" learned the benefits of a society in which "there was no dominant racial background," to living in Salt Lake City and understanding how "marginalized groups are forced to accept how the lens of race dominates our lives."

His conversation at Grimey's with Russell is fascinating because the Americana artist, an adopted child who was a victim of parental assault, is a proponent of people discovering their "chosen" family, meaning one comprised of people who intentionally choose to embrace, love, nurture and support each other outside of the constrictions of blood relations.

Ayers connected with Russell during the COVID-19 quarantine and while swapping notes on family-memoir writing (announced per her signing a book deal with Flatiron Books in January 2022).

About the notion of "chosen family" and how it impacts his own life, Ayers adds: "Because I have emotionally struggled with how my father has not significantly been a part of my life — but has shadowed my existence in so many ways — connecting with people who have various connections with him has become essential in fostering the semblance of my relationship to him via his life and work."

Those who have impacted him include Chicas Reed (aka Debbie Darby), the vocalist on Roy Ayers' 1976 classic "Everybody Loves the Sunshine," whom Nabil met in October 2022 during an interview and book signing.

Even deeper, as a member of the Recording Academy's board of directors, he was at the recent Grammy Awards and recalled the 50th anniversary of hip-hop retrospective performance as particularly noteworthy.

According to WhoSampled.com, "Everybody Loves the Sunshine" has been sampled 167 times, mainly in songs key to the foundation of hip-hop culture, like Mary J. Blige's 1994 hit "My Life."

Moreover, the moment's co-curator, Roots' drummer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, is also "a huge fan of my dad's," according to Ayers.

"It was such a proud, yet strange moment."

Since marrying and relocating to New York City, he's also had profoundly impacting moments, such as walking past his father's apartment at Seventh Avenue and 18th Street on Manhattan's Lower West Side and his mother's apartment on Downing Street in Greenwich Village. He's also walked up to the door at Electric Lady Studios at 52 W. Eighth St., where his father recorded many albums.

"I've grabbed the door handle at [Electric Lady Studios] to relive moments that my father had," says Ayers.

Catching Ayers as his book and tour continue to resonate with the marketplace also finds him at a moment that offers hope for himself and how intersectionality and race will impact America, too.

"I've brought my life story to people and the response has been crazier than expected," he says. "All I wanted was a piece I could potentially publish in The New Yorker. But, instead, I've unearthed something I will continue to dig into because it's allowed me to keep creating connections that help me live my best life in the future. That's important."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nabil Ayers, Roy Ayers' son, on his new book 'My Life in the Sunshine'