In 2010, Sir Robin stepped away from full-time music production to concentrate on disability rights helping employers to unlock potential in disabled applicants. The Lifetime Achievement Award is given to someone who has had a long-term impact on the lives of people with sight loss.
Keith Valentine, CEO of the Vision Foundation and former director of External Affairs at RNIB, explains why Sir Robin is a worthy winner in his nomination: “Robin’s fame and success in the music industry is unparalleled, but his lifetime dedication to influential voluntary work, fundraising and taking his role as a role model for other visually impaired people seriously, is unique too. Not only that, I can personally attest to the impact that he has had on my life and my prospects as a blind person seeking to pursue a senior career.”
Sir Robin, who has retinitis pigmentosa and was registered blind at 16, is a music industry legend, producing some of the most iconic albums in the last 40 years, including Sade’s Diamond Life. He is very clear on how the initial diagnosis affected him: “My sight loss diagnosis was on my sixteenth birthday. I’d travelled to Moorfield hospital on the bus and arrived at 10 o’clock. I left at midday with a White Cane and a pair of dark glasses, having been told you will lose your eye sight completely in the next 20 years. “And, on the bus journey home I changed from absolute shock – to the beginnings of a plan - and that plan was I’ve got 20 years to become independent, to become successful and to try to remain cool – and I mean cool as in not a figure of fun.” Immense success followed, as his work with Sade, Spandau Ballet, “Everything But The Girl and many, many more has shown. His plan wasn’t all smooth sailing but his love of music remains. Sir Robin says: It didn’t go without hiccup but that’s broadly the plan I stuck to. I love and value the part that all music plays in cheering up the mundane, in taking us out of ourselves and, in the way, that sometimes a four minute song can that a novel cannot.”
After moving away from full-time music production to give more time to his charitable work, in 2010 he cofounded Blue Raincoat Music which bought Chrysalis Records in 2016, with its prestigious back catalogue, including Blondie and Sinead O’Connor. Blue Raincoat Music works on principles of equality, diversity and inclusion. Sir Robin explains why: “The reason is obvious, the business is more successful because of it. The more diverse your workforce, the more inclusive your business, the more money you will make.”
In September 2020, Sir Robin was appointed Chair Designate of disability charity Scope, after serving eight years as Global Ambassador for Leonard Cheshire Disability. He mentors musicians who are starting on their careers too. Sirine Jahangir, a musician and singer-songwriter, reflects on his support: “Sir Robin has not only become a phenomenal mentor, he has also become a friend to me. Experience has painted him a generous man with a humble heart and that is truly the best way I can describe him.” His motivation is clear: “I think I used to feel that I was somehow exceptional, that I’d made my way in the world and, you know, beaten the system and beaten the hostility. But, of course, I’m not it. The default position of people with disabilities is determination. Being knocked, picking yourself up. “That’s what defines disability in an amazing, amazing way.” He says he is “absolutely delighted” to accept the lifetime achievement award: “More than anything else because I’m waving at everyone else, young, middle aged or old and I’m saying there’s nothing special about me. If I can do it, you can do it.”
