Rikki Stein, born into a regular, middle-class home in the UK, has had what must have seemed an unlikely career. As a music manager he has toured the world in the company of music legends – from the late Nigerian Afrobeat star Fela Kuti to American rockers The Grateful Dead and Morocco’s Master Musicians of Joujouka.
The stories of the people working behind the scenes supporting great artists rarely get the spotlight they deserve. But Stein’s recently released autobiography Moving Music is as colourful and compelling as the artists he’s worked with. It serves as a time capsule of sorts, capturing key moments in music history: from the famous Woodstock festival in New York in 1969 and the early years of the UK’s Glastonbury Festival in the 1970s to the emergence of African music on the global stage of the “world music” era of the 1980s.
As a music scholar studying the global obsession surrounding Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and the cultural and political contexts that drive it, I was eager to read Stein’s memoirs. A significant portion of Moving Music focuses on his long-standing friendship with Fela and his role as his manager. Stein continues to preserve and promote Fela’s legacy.
