Stephen Budd

Stephen Budd is a British music industry executive based in London. He is a director of artist and producer management company Stephen Budd Music Ltd, the Africa Express project, and a co-founder of the NH7 Weekender festivals in India. In 2017 he completed his 3-year term as co-chairman of the . He is a co-executive producer of Amnesty International and Sofar Sounds' ‘Give A Home’ global concert series.
He was asked to manage record producer Tony Visconti and Visconti's Good Earth Studios in London's Soho, leading to the founding of Stephen Budd Management in 1985. He went on to manage bands Heaven 17 and Gang of Four as well as British pop/folk singer-songwriter Tanita Tikaram and The Magic Numbers. He was a director of Stephen Budd Management until it was absorbed by the MAMA Group and subsequently HMV.
He is a founder and board member of the trade association and was the creator of its producer managers group. He was the organization's co-chairman from 2013 to 2017. charity concert project to raise money for Warchild and Shelter. The project has featured Amy Winehouse, The Cure, Duran Duran, Coldplay, Florence and the Machine, and other artists performing in small venues. The 2015 edition raised over £500,000 for Warchild and won the 'Best Use Of Events' awards at the National Fundraising Awards.
In 2006 the Africa Express project was formed with musician Damon Albarn, journalist Ian Birrell, and others. The project aims to bring African music into the mainstream through musical collaborations with Western artists. Artists who have featured in Africa Express to date include; Paul McCartney, Amadou & Mariam, Baba Maal, Franz Ferdinand, and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Africa Express was part of the London 2012 festival, a part of the Cultural Olympiad. In 2014, a CD Africa Express Presents Maison de Jeunes was released on Transgressive Records featuring musical collaborations recorded in Mali by Albarn, Brian Eno, Ghostpoet, Django Django and others. In 2014 Budd was executive producer for 'Africa Express Presents Terry Riley's In C at the Tate Modern' which resulted in an interactive film and concert album. In 2019, Budd and his Africa Express colleagues had 80 musicians from around the world performing in a circus tent erected in Albarn's native area of East London, Leytonstone.
Other activities branching outside the UK include Budd joining the British Prime Minister David Cameron's 2010 trade mission to India where he co-founded the NH7 Weekender Festival which has featured artists including Mark Ronson, Flying Lotus, The Wailers, AR Rahman, and Megadeth.. He joined the advisory board of Palestine Music Expo (PMX) in 2016, helping to create a three-day live music showcase in Ramallah aiming to highlight the local music scene. Budd has chaired Eurovision Song Contest selection panels for Georgia and Azerbaijan. In 2017 he became the co-executive producer of Amnesty International and Sofar Sounds' ‘Give A Home’ global concert series that took place in 60 countries in support of Amnesty International's ‘I Welcome’ refugees program. The series featured over 1000 artists performing shows in peoples' houses and included performances from Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sandé, Moby, The National, and Hot Chip.
Budd is a co-founder of OneFest which, since its inception in 2011, has featured artists including Albarn, Laura Marling, and Damien Rice, and gone on to win 'Best Independent Festival’ at the 2017 AIM Awards for a four-day event at London's Roundhouse in collaboration with musician Frank Turner.
In late 2017 Budd, along with Martin Elbourne, helped establish the DMZ Peace Train Music Festival in South Korea, and joined its board. The not-for-profit festival is run in collaboration with the mayor of Seoul. The two day featured a conference in Seoul followed by a train taking artists and attendees to the demilitarized zone for live performances at the border with North Korea. Headliners announced for the second edition of the festival in 2019 were John Cale, Korean-Chinese rockstar Cui Jian, and the Korean couple Chung Tae-chun and Park Eun-ok.
In 2021 and 2022 Budd resurrected the Passport Back To The Bars project in a new incarnation as the Passport Back To Our Roots concert series in support of small venues threatened with closure as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The series of shows in small venues by the likes of Pet Shop Boys, Elbow, Metronomy, Everything Everything, Passenger, Ash, Public Service Broadcasting and others raised over £140,000 for the Music Venue Trust's #SaveOurVenues campaign.
Public appearances
Budd has presented educational programs for The British Council in Nigeria, India, China and Uganda, and has given speeches at music conferences and events around the world including MIDEM (France), The Great Escape (UK), WOMEX, A Greener Festival (UK), In The City (UK), FUSE Festival (Australia), M for Montreal (Canada), Tallinn Music Week (Estonia), Mastering the Music Business (Romania), Medimex (Italy), Soundports (Turkey), Whats Next In Music (Lithuania), Pin Music Conference (N.Macedonia), and Oslo World Music Festival (Norway), where he gave a talk at the Nobel Peace Center on music and politics. Budd has been a speaker at the Berklee College of Music and at the London School of Economics.
Interviews with Budd appear in various music documentaries including The Africa Express, and Walking In The Opposite Direction (about the artist Adrian Borland and The Sound), and books such as Martin Roach's Take That - Now and Then biography, and Jonathan Maitland's How to Have a No.1 Hit Single.

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