About
Hi I’m Andrew GJ aka DJ Droid.
Since the Spring of 2018 I’ve been producing and hosting the Turtle Island Radio Show broadcast by the London arts radio station ResonanceFM . The show is also, from early 2019, broadcast weekly by Austrian radio stations Radio Agora, and Freequeens Radio, and in Italy by Radio Onde Furlane.
On May 1st of 2020 I entered the dynamic world of podcasting, Tunes from Turtle Island is the podcast version of the FM show kindly hosted by Pantheon Podcasts.
As far as I know it is the only European radio show to exclusivity promote the indigenous musicians, bands and sound artists of North America. On the show I play all genres of music from Hip Hop, Rock, Jazz and Blues through to Traditional, Country, Folk and more, from the first period of recorded sound, right up to the present day. Being an artist I love stories so in amongst the music you can hear Poetry and Spoken Word too. I also include news articles on environmental destruction, social and human rights issues impacting on the indigenous communities.
Originally inspired by the Standing Rock protests of 2016/17. Whilst watching videos produced in solidarity with those protests I heard a number of bands and artists that I’d never heard before and decided to delve further into the indigenous music scene of N. America. I found a treasure trove of music (but also a huge amount of info on the most marginalised peoples of North America). I started to put together a show featuring only indigenous artists from Mexico, America and Canada, and so the Turtle Island Radio Show was born.
My journey from outsider artist through art collage to radio show host is detailed in this article by Flux Review.
From Sculpture To Indigenous Radio.
My primary motive for making the Turtle Island Radio Show it to introduce more people to the amazing music coming out of Turtle Island (Canada, the USA Mexico and Greenland). I also want to shine a light on the environmental and social challenges that these communities face in everyday life. My modus operandi takes its inspiration from the legendary UK DJ John Peel and I play all genres of music side by side.
This is a voluntary/gratis project, and I am happy for any free/non-commercial radio stations to rebroadcast it, and of course, I am always happy to receive donations.
I’m a practising artist working with different mediums including film/video, glass and mixed media, my work can be found at andrewgj.uk