Real name: Richard Blair

Effective period / Period of releases: 1997 - 2015

Sidestepper began as the studio project of producer Richard Blair in the mid 1990s.

Blair worked for Peter Gabriel at Real World Studios in the early 1990s, where he made a record with Colombian legend Totó La Momposina. He went to Colombia to work with her in 1993 and has been there pretty much ever since. Through his work as a producer he met many great musicians, singers and writers, and Sidestepper began to evolve into a full live band. They signed to Palm Pictures in 1999 and made two highly influential albums: More Grip in 2000, and 3AM ::: In Beats We Trust in 2003. The latter yielded a big hit in Colombia and Sidestepper earned their place as the originators of a new Latin beats movement. Many players and singers from Sidestepper went on to great success with such bands as Chocquibtown, Bomba Estereo and Sistema Solar.