Creativity Quote by Roy Ayers

Ayers is talking like a working musician who’s done being a rumor and wants to be a fact. “Exposure” is the key tell: it’s the word artists reach for when they’re describing visibility as currency, but also when they’re wary of being commodified by it. He’s not chasing abstract “buzz” or industry validation here; he’s pointing to a very specific pipeline of legitimacy: bodies in a room, music hitting skin-level before it hits print or radio.

The phrasing “first with people directly in the clubs” flips the usual hierarchy. In the classic music-business story, you get discovered by gatekeepers and then you reach the audience. Ayers is describing the opposite: audience-first, gatekeepers later. It’s a subtle flex, but also a strategy born of experience. Clubs are where jazz-funk actually proves itself - in sweat, in improvisation, in the unteachable feedback loop between performer and crowd. If the tune works there, it’s not theoretical; it’s tested.

“This is a unique situation for me” carries a little astonishment, even relief. For an artist whose career spans eras when exposure often meant intermediaries (labels, critics, radio programmers), direct contact reads like regained control. There’s also a quiet acknowledgment of how scenes shift: by the time Ayers is saying this, club culture isn’t just a venue; it’s a distribution system, a community, a taste-making machine. The subtext is simple and sharp: the music doesn’t need permission if the room already believes.