Feel What I feel In The Sunshine

Feel What I Feel in the Sunshine is a tambourine installation comprised of lemon yellow, butter yellow, marigold and orange tambourines commissioned in 2022 by Apple Music for installation in their new headquarters in Culver City, CA. The title is from lyrics of the song Everybody Loves the Sunshine by Roy Ayers, released in 1976 and an anthem of that summer.

Describing the work, Lava Thomas says that the song’s slow groove and lyrics captured the feeling of her summer adolescence: “Lazy days at the beach (Venice, Santa Monica, Malibu, or Zuma), alone or with friends, lying on the sand and looking out at the ocean – watching sunlight twinkle on the water’s surface while the day changed from bright sunlight to sunset’s red/orange glow. While my adolescence was, at times, difficult, memories and music from that summer stir feelings of quiet joy, easy contentment, and anticipation. I was young, and on the verge of independence. Bathed in the sun’s warmth, my life was before me, and everything was possible.”  

Ayers’s Everybody Loves the Sunshine still resonates. Mary J. Blige sampled the original track’s hook “my life, my life, my life, my life, in the sunshine” for the title track of her breakthrough album My Life, released in 1994, and discussed the song’s impact on her life in the documentary My Life in 2021. The song has been covered and sampled by numerous artists including Common, J. Cole, Naughty By Nature, FunkDoobiest, Brand Nubian, and Seu Jorge. Late rapper 2Pac sang the “my life” hook on Lost Souls featuring Outlawz.