Creativity Quote by Roy Ayers

Roy Ayers punctures the romantic myth of the all-seeing genius with a musician’s shrug and a little bruised humility. “Artists don’t always know” lands like a quiet rebuke to the idea that taste is a pure, personal compass. In practice, the hit record is often less prophecy than accident: a collision between an artist’s instincts and a promotional machine trained to smell mass appetite.

The subtext is an admission of how opaque “the market” feels from inside the studio. Ayers isn’t saying artists are clueless; he’s saying the criteria for a hit aren’t the same criteria for artistic satisfaction. Creators tend to judge work by craft, risk, and emotional truth. Labels and promo teams judge by timing, format, radio friendliness, and the less noble metric of what can be repeated until it sticks. His repeated “I was wrong every time!” isn’t self-flagellation so much as respect for an infrastructure he didn’t fully control - and maybe didn’t fully trust.

Context matters: Ayers’ career sits at the intersection of jazz, funk, and what later got labeled “neo-soul” and hip-hop sampling culture. That world thrives on grooves that travel: a riff that DJs can loop, a vibe that radio can brand, a chorus that crowds can claim as theirs. He’s acknowledging the weird democracy of pop: the audience, nudged by promotion, finishes the composition by deciding what counts. The punchline is unsettling and liberating - your “best” song might not be your biggest, and success can arrive wearing someone else’s taste.