Radio remains an incredibly powerful aspect of music. Not only does it bring different voices together, but it also educates on sounds and musical stories around the world. One station that understands this influence is G-SHOCK Radio. Formed in June 2023, the station is an offshoot of the famous wristwatch company Casio’s G-SHOCK brand, broadcasting four days a week from G-SHOCK’s Central London store. It has gained a big following in just one year, attracting the likes of Melomaniacs, Mr Trouble, The Juice and many more DJs and music collectives to spin. What’s more, they use Mixcloud to stream sets and shows live to their audience of millions around the globe.
By giving a platform to young, local and promising DJs and hosts, G-SHOCK Radio have placed community at the heart of what they do, playing a crucial role in music culture by cultivating voices for the future.
We spoke to co-founders Mikey Anto and Nav Kiani to celebrate their one-year anniversary and talk about their studio space, how their programming works and uniting people through music.
Tell us a bit about the background of the station? How did it come about?
Mikey: We were running G-SESSIONS which was our series of monthly events as a way of giving back to the G-SHOCK community. Its been running for 26 years and people like Slum Village, Unknown T and IAMDDB have performed over the years. But off the back of Nav’s experience in radio, hosting shows, we thought it’d be a great idea to bring that element into G-SHOCK. We saw it as an arm, an extension of the cultural activity we were doing at the time. Our biggest target audience is Gen-Z and they tend to find the culture before the brands do. So doing cool stuff like radio kind of aligns us to them to where they’re like, ‘oh this is Casio.’ G-SHOCK Radio is a really cool brand initiative holding its own among the other top independent stations already, after just a year.
Nav: We soft launched in May 2023, it was just me and a couple of broadcasters, but its quickly become this community hub for all kinds of people. The downstairs space is multi-functional; its a staff room for employees upstairs in the retail space, it houses the station. Its a lot of things to a lot of people.
Mikey: Its a real speakeasy: if you know, you know!
How do you recruit hosts for the station? Is there a criteria that you follow?
Nav: Initially we went to our network and got guys that I used to DJ with. We have a submission process where potential hosts can send over their shows. More often than not we judge what is feasible. Do you live locally? Can you get to the store? Can you commit to it? Do you have a different creative angle? We tend to give them the platform to do a trial show and see what happens. After seeing what they can offer, we’ll then deliberate. We live stream from 10am until 7pm because that’s when the store closes, so we take that into consideration when picking hosts. Can they fit in the flow sonically? I wouldn’t know how to fit someone in who has a Tech House show, for example.
But on the flip of that, someone might have a connection to a range of producers and want to do a show showcasing all of their new music, which would be quite appealing. Because ultimately, that’s what we’re about. Giving a platform to new voices and music. We want to be able to nurture younger generations to be able to develop. Especially those who are homegrown, from the UK and are less experienced.
How do you guys program what goes on the station?
Nav: We treat programming like radio takeovers. Saturdays and Sundays are pretty important days because we’re able to do a full day of curation that helps soundtrack the store upstairs and has a great musical spread. Normally, I’ll give a crew or collective a six-hour slot to fill with their music and communities, then we’ll create the visual assets and make sure they’re happy with everything. DJs are then responsible for their activity on the day.
As we’ve gotten more submissions, we wanted to have another whole day of programming that helps introduce new voices and sounds, almost like an ‘introducing’ type of segment. Those are now on Thursdays, with individual shows across the day, starting from 12pm. I tend to curate those days, bringing in people that we feel fit what we’re trying to do on the day, and what musical journey we want to take listeners on. I think we’re doing ok!
Mikey: There’s also the playback day on Wednesdays. We’ve got all this brilliant content and want to repurpose them, so we send reminders out that you can listen to previous shows on the website, and drive them to Mixcloud as well.
Nav: That then allows us to create playlists of the shows that are playing for our members to constantly go back to.
You stream sets from the store in Central London. Why was this aspect important to you?
Mikey: I’m responsible for bringing that store back to Carnaby Street from east London eight years ago. Over those years its become such a creative hub and a place for people to congregate and it just felt right that we had to have a space within that environment. To be put in something that fits in so naturally. People that play on the station get a really good sense of what it means. Even if you didn’t know what G-SHOCK is, going down to the basement would give you a really good idea. Its been a really nice way to humanize the brand and to show that we are about community.
What does the studio setup look like? What kind of equipment do you have?
Nav: We’ve accommodated one corner of the downstairs area. I designed the setup so that its very bespoke and is able to house the decks and everything tech. We’ve built a nice backdrop for the live stream element. We have a Pioneer XZ controller attached to two MK7 Technics, with a Rodecaster, two microphones and an Elgato Pro camera. And a chat that allows the Mixcloud chat to be seen.
How has your experience on Mixcloud factored into G-SHOCK Radio’s journey?
Nav: Our relationship with Mixcloud has definitely changed who has seen us, where we’ve appeared throughout the world, our metrics. Mixcloud Live has been critical because that;s how we put radio out. And we want people to know that we’re live. We project the stream on a screen in the store and people will stand outside staring at the screen, walking into the store and wondering where the station is. Its important for us that we have a visual representation of the station. Especially when you have people like Jay Electronica, The LOX and Slum Village downstairs any given day. Being on board with Mixcloud just allows us to really enhance what we’re doing.
It must have made sense to then have a microsite where you embed the Mixcloud live stream so viewers can see when someone in the station is live?
Nav: Yeah, and we’re very much focused on pushing listeners to the page on G-SHOCK’s website where the embed still exists. Its a dope marriage of the two worlds.
Tell us a bit about your community on Mixcloud; what role do they play?
Mikey: We’re based in London but the reach has been mad! The number of countries where we have listeners is incredible. Our top audiences are the UK and Japan, and Japan means so much because Casio is obviously a Japanese company. There’s also Malaysia and Indonesia, so its really great to have so many Asian countries tapping in. Something so Eurocentric has gone completely beyond that. I never thought that would happen so soon, the amount of millions of plays we have.
Nav: I had to ask you guys, ‘how many bots have you got listening to our stuff?!’ [laughs] That couldn’t be true. At the time we took it with a pinch of salt to not blow our heads up and especially those of the younger DJs. So we encourage them to take it cool and appreciate it. But I knew the support was real when I started seeing our streams across the world, like bars in Greece and the USA listening to our shows. Its been really nice getting feedback and seeing our DJs chart on Mixcloud and being excited by that.
How do you continue to build your community? Are you involved in any local initiatives or work with other organizations?
Nav: We work monthly with a DJ academy called On The Rise that comes in and curates a day of programming with six DJs, some of which have never played out and some are established. They’ll do that on a Saturday and then on the following Sunday, they then play live sets at Boxpark. Kind of like a double header for the DJs. We have some really cool sets from those guys and some are even residents now. That’s a very accessible way for us to reach out to, work with and encourage up and coming DJs who want a chance to play.
Mikey: We do newsletters as well, and there’s a section where we round up all of the programming from any given week. Its all really organic how we approach our wider community.
What would you say are some of G-SHOCK Radio’s greatest achievements so far?
Mikey: Radio was just an idea that Nav and I had and to see how its turned out over the last year has been the most rewarding. We always believed we’d get there somehow, but its mind blowing how fast its happened. I’m incredibly proud of that and incredibly proud of the community. Everything we do has community in mind and G-SHOCK Radio embodies that. Its nice that we’re feeding that message to individuals and they’re spreading the word and, slowly but surely, people are discovering how we support up and coming talent. G-SHOCK has a right to be in the music space because of all of the collaborations that we’ve done in the past. Casio instruments revolutionized Reggae music, for example. So its pretty special that we’re using our platform to try to educate others.
Nav: But also random encounters with people who don’t know we’re involved, saying their mate played on G-SHOCK Radio. That’s a real achievement. Not necessarily that we have to go to press but that we’re touching people we might not have even thought about. The fact the we’ve been consistent for the last year, that every week there is a different takeover. Whether its Jazz or the latest Kaytranada edit being mashed up with other tunes by a new DJ. Having that depth is a success. We’ve had such a diversity of music, good selectors and that’s something I’ll always have pride in.
What tips would you give to someone who wants to start their own radio station?
Nav: Talk to me! And bring your invoice! [laughs]
Mikey: If you want to establish yourself in the music industry, you have to be different. That doesn’t necessarily mean playing different types of music. But what singles you out from people doing what you want to do? But ultimately, just give it a go. We give opportunities to people who want to give it a go, and they know they have a chance with us. So, just do it!
Nav: You just have to be brave. Ask yourself, ‘is this something I really want to do?’ If it is, then go and press play. As you go on, you can refine things that you don’t like about it. But the biggest thing is the ‘why’. What is the purpose of what you’re doing? If you figure that out, then you can always go back to it to retain your focus. You need that in any aspect of life.