CJ Carlos streams soul, funk, R&B, and disco, carrying the name of the London DJ who has been playing that exact mix since he was a teenager in the late 1970s. The station gives a global internet audience a continuous feed of the sound Carlos built his reputation on, decades before streaming existed.
From covering a no-show DJ to London's pirate airwaves
According to his own events and radio biography, Carlos started DJing in 1977 at age 16 after being asked to cover for an absent DJ at Samanthas nightclub. He impressed management enough to land part-time work, and within a year he was the club's number one resident DJ, a run that carried him to its sister venue, HOMBRES on Well Street, for eight years.
His move into radio came in 1981 through Horizon Radio, one of the unlicensed pirate stations that drove London's soul scene in that era. Pirate outlets like Horizon existed because mainstream British radio had little room for soul and disco, leaving fans to chase the music on late-night, unofficial frequencies, a gap that stations such as Solar Radio were built to fill. Carlos became Horizon's most popular presenter before joining Solar Radio itself in 1984, the same year Solar launched by pulling together DJs from Horizon and fellow pirate JFM.
A career built one residency at a time
The momentum continued through the 1980s. By 1985, Blues and Soul magazine had named Carlos one of the top ten club and radio DJs in the country. He went on to community station WNK in 1990, and today he still holds a weekly slot on London Music Radio, playing Tuesday evenings and Friday afternoons alongside the Soul Family events and boat parties he now runs for the audience he built over nearly five decades behind the decks.
That same soul, funk, R&B, and disco mix streams around the clock on this station, free to hear on Radio Shuffle with no sign-up required.