Radio Funky Hits streams disco, funk, soul and R&B from the 1970s and 1980s free on Radio Shuffle, broadcasting out of Lima, Peru as part of the FM Lima network. Its name carries more history than most listeners would guess, borrowed from a cult English-lyrics songbook that predates the station by decades.
A Name Borrowed From a Language-Learning Songbook
Long before it was a radio station, Funky Hits was a cancionero, a printed songbook that transcribed the lyrics of English-language hits for Peruvian students trying to learn the language. University students Rubén Nieva and Bernabé Jara built a small business around the idea in Lima's jirón Carabaya, filling a gap left by the Songs Hits songbooks that were hard to find locally and mostly owned by people who had relatives sending packages from the United States, according to accounts of the original cancionero. The radio station that carries the name today draws on that same appetite for English-language pop, just delivered as a 24-hour stream instead of a printed booklet.
The Year Disco Took Over Lima
The genre Radio Funky Hits plays did not arrive in Peru gradually. In 1978, distributor El Virrey released the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever and watched it become, according to a history of the moment, the biggest commercial success in the history of Peru's national recording industry, moving 250,000 copies. Before that, Lima's musical taste ran toward rock and salsa, and going to a discotheque with a date was considered daring, almost scandalous, according to one radio programmer who lived through it. The Bee Gees' "You Should Be Dancing" became the first big local hit off the soundtrack, followed by a wave of new club openings and even dance academies teaching Travolta-style moves, and Grease landed later that year to keep the momentum going with another 180,000 copies sold.
A Catalogue Built for That Exact Era
Radio Funky Hits leans directly into the sound that moment created, running disco, funk, soul and R&B from the 1970s and 80s around the clock as part of the wider FM Lima family of niche genre stations, which also runs dedicated channels for boleros and retro Latin hits. Rather than chasing new releases, it treats that late-70s nightlife explosion, and the decade of funk and soul that fed into it, as a self-contained catalogue worth replaying indefinitely for listeners who still want that sound.
Listen to Radio Funky Hits Free on Radio Shuffle
Tune in to Radio Funky Hits on Radio Shuffle, no account, no app, no fee. Press play and hear the disco and funk sound that turned Lima's nightlife upside down in 1978, streaming under a name borrowed from a songbook decades older than the station itself.