Music
Friend & Manager of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti Rikki Stein is Chronicling His Musical Life in Memoir “Moving Music”
London-born veteran music manager Rikki Stein has spent six decades managing a range of performing artists. He’s signed them to record deals, organised massive concert tours, and championed African artists from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Jamaica South Africa, as well as African artists based in Great Britain and the US.
Throughout his career, Rikki (now 81) has toured with some of the world’s most iconic musicians and groups, including The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Kinks, The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Moody Blues, and the Grateful Dead. Above all, he is best known for his friendship and management of the late Afrobeat legend and activist, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, from 1983 until Fela’s passing in 1997.
Alongside the Kuti family, Rikki helped manage Fela’s legacy. He served as secretary and administrator of the Fela Anikulapo Kuti Estate Ltd, a company formed in 1997 to protect the rights of Fela’s inheritors. He was the associate producer of the Fela! musical on Broadway at London’s National Theatre (2009), the executive producer of the Lagos, Nigeria production (2011), and the associate producer of the 2014 documentary “Finding Fela” (2014).
In his upcoming memoir, “Moving Music” Rikki Stein recounts his six-decade adventure managing and touring musicians around the world.
“After 60 years of carrying some of the world’s most gifted artists around the world, I’ve written it all down in these, my memoirs,” Rikki wrote in an Instagram post co-published with Fela’s children, Yeni Kuti and Femi Kuti.
“Always in the right place at the right time, Rikki was part of the great countercultural moments of the last century, from Woodstock and the Vietnam War Moratorium March to the launch of Glastonbury Festival… Rikki’s journey is also a spiritual one, forged by his experience of living among the community of Musicians of Joujouka, Morocco, who remain a key connection in his life to this day.
Full of extraordinary, sometimes hilarious, stories of life on the road, this book recounts the joys, frustrations and surprises of juggling logistics, local politics and the whims of his creative clients to deliver true moments of moving music,” reads the blurb from Wordville.
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