Funk pioneer Sly Stone, a onetime San Francisco DJ turned pop music innovator and leader of Sly and the Family Stone, has died at 82.

Sly Stone, the driving force behind Sly and the Family Stone, a multiracial American band whose boiling mix of rock, soul and psychedelia embodied 1960s idealism and helped popularize funk music, has died at the age of 82,

Sly Stone, an electrifying musician, songwriter and showman whose Sly and the Family Stone transformed popular music in the 1960s and ’70s, has died at the age of 82.