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.
Wordville
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.
He also proves himself to be an astute storyteller as he weaves together a larger narrative about a life of triumphs, tragedies and cautionary tales. From its lush descriptions to its intimate accounts and previously unpublished photos, Stein’s autobiography offers readers a rare insider glimpse into the music business. His writing is rooted in a deep understanding of the industry and the artists who drive it forward.
Who is Rikki Stein?
Rikki Stein was born Eric Stein in 1942 into a modest Jewish family in the London suburb of Ilford – a teenage friend gave him the nickname. Stein’s restless curiosity and disdain for conventional schooling set him on a unique path. He concluded, at an early age, that we are here to:
Find out. Investigate. Go into things deeply. Change things. Also have a good time.
Walking out of Ilford County High School on his 16th birthday, Stein immediately set out on a life journey that would take him from the gambling world to opening coffee bars, real estate ventures and, ultimately, his first love – music. His passion for jazz opened the door to his career in music management, at first organising jazz venues.
His world is one of constant motion – moving from country to country, artist to artist, story to story. Stein has toured some of the great artists and bands, including UK and US rock stars Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, The Kinks, The Animals and The Yardbirds. Stein managed the Moroccan Master Musicians of Joujouka and, of course, the politically outspoken Fela, who drove a new west African music movement called Afrobeat in the 1960s and 1970s.
Ricki Stein (right) with Fela Kuti. Femi Osunla courtesy Rikki Stein
Despite not knowing what a stereo was or how to differentiate between musical notes A sharp and B flat, he took on the role of producer for French 1960s rock band Les Sunlights. It was the start of his meteoric rise in the industry. Stein later learned the art of recording and mixing, a skill that no doubt shaped his role in the remastering and reissues of Fela’s music catalogues.
As artistic director of French label Barclay Records in the 1960s his job was to find, nurture and record artists. He once travelled from France to the US to meet the parents of a 16-year-old Randy Crawford to sign her. He bungled the deal. Crawford went on to be a star jazz and soul singer at another label. Yet Stein left an indelible mark on the French music industry, the first to ensure that artistic directors receive credits and royalties for their work.
Rikki Stein and Fela Kuti
One of Stein’s proudest achievements is his role in ensuring Fela’s rightful place among the most iconic cultural figures of the 20th century. He writes:
That an artist, 27 years after his death, is able to achieve such results due, in small part, to my efforts on his behalf, serves as a vindication of my dedication to defending and promoting his legacy.
Stein has earned widespread respect within the industry for his commitment to this legacy. Apart from working on the remastering of the catalogue, he played a vital role in taking Fela, the Musical to Broadway. He also created the UK version of the Felabration events and supports several other projects focused on Fela’s legacy.
British anthropologist Karin Barber concludes, through her studies of west African Yorùbá deities, that gods are made by humans and are kept alive by the attention and partnership of their devotees. In my reading of Fela, I explain how he “created his own myth, and his fans continued to build that mythology over the decades”.
Stein’s efforts have contributed to shaping who Fela has become and how we remember him. His work has helped transform the musician’s posthumous reputation and his emergence as a deity-like, omnipresent figure, ensuring his influence reaches a global audience.
Beyond biography
Biographies are not just life’s story. Music scholars like myself have long used biographical writings as a point of departure for uncovering and exploring broader societal historical events, political economies, and cultural practices.
While Stein’s memoir is rich in stories, it leaves the reader wishing for more primary source material beyond photographs, like letters and newspaper articles. When asked about this in a Zoom call, Stein admitted he had never been much of a collector, a consequence perhaps of his lifelong nomadic tendencies.
For all his years promoting others, Stein has rarely been one to promote himself. Moving Music will undoubtedly shape how posterity remembers him, as he has contributed to shaping how Fela is remembered.
This article was first published by the Conversation:
