Behind it all was Sly Stone, the visionary who died Monday at 82 after a long battle with the lung disease COPD. He wrote, produced and arranged the music, winning acclaim as the author of invigorating anthems and an inventor of new,

Long before the home studio became an industry norm, Stone, who died on June 9, 2025, turned the studio into both a sanctuary and an instrument. And long before sampling defined the sound of hip-hop, he was using tape and machine rhythms to deconstruct existing songs to cobble together new ones.