Rosko Interview 2026

Rob Jones chats to Emperor Rosko in this February 2026 interview.

You championed soul music here in the UK back in the day. What was it like to be the only American DJ working at the BBC at the time, and did you feel you had a different perspective on soul music to the audiences you were broadcasting to in the UK and Europe?

Being the only guy from the USA on the BBC at that time, I didn't think about it to be quite honest. I had a kind of a modified trans-Atlantic accent if I recall and just being the only one was simply what it was, it was like a planted flower in the garden that grows. I was there and it happened. As for my perception of soul music I have a good ear, I think, for what's commercial. I worked with my Rosko Roadshow in the clubs three or four nights a week across the UK from Ireland to Cornwall - everywhere. So I had a pretty good idea of what people liked. There were the extremists in the south who wanted funk and then there were the extremists in the north who wanted the high-speed mindless music, so it was soul, but it was usually the B-side of a record and I tried to use my ear and judge the audience depending on where I was to give them the best evening possible.

You gave a lot of advice to budding DJs such as myself in the original Emperor Rosko's DJ Book, which was often referred to as the DJ's Bible. What advice would you have for DJs who are just starting out nowadays, either on the road, online, or both?

Woah, I don't know if I'm in the position to give advice anymore. I don't even know what's going on out there digitally and cyberlly. Everything's crazy. I think, go back to the roots. You've gotta make people happy, gotta supply what they need; and if you follow those two rules, the only thing left is the delivery. And that would be entirely up to you and your personality. I mean, that's the way I see it; so if you're in a pub, you're hired to do pub music so to speak or music whilst you're in the pub, and people wanna talk - then you obviously don't blast them with something that's making everybody strain to speak. On the other hand - and if you're in the same pub - and they're all wanting to dance, you play something they can dance to. So, it's logic and you get your practice with the public in the pubs and the clubs and then you take it - in the old days - to the radio; nowadays everybody's a DJ, everybody has a boombox, everybody has a radio show, everybody's doing everything. So I would imagine you go streaming (not that I do that) but my guess is you would get something going on a social media platform and build a following. That's what the "influencers" seem to be doing. So that's where I would go with that if I were 20 years old today.

Do you have any other soul-music related anecdotes you've never mentioned in public before?

Something I've never mentioned before about my experiences in the soul music world, woah!  That would be pretty cool. I never talked about Sister Sledge. I toured with them, and, each one had a bodyguard for the large "mama", and they were never, ever left alone. A couple of times, if I was on stage, introducing them of course, I could get a little closer, but Mama was always watching, so that kind of soul never took place. They're still going today and that's what's really amazing. I remember them as young ladies.

I've got a story for you; one that stands out in my mind more than any, about my good instincts in investing money into music, thinking I might make a few quid... This was back when I was young and stupid, about 20 years of age. I was in the military, so I was frequently overseas for six months at a time and then back into the US. I had enough money to afford an eight-cylinder Plymouth, made in the 1940s. It was a tank with a straight eight in it. Just to give you the idea of how wealthy I was at the time -- the only money I had was what the government paid us a month. I was working as a handy tea boy, I guess; kind of a cross between a PA and a slave for Tom Donahue and Bob Mitchell in San Francisco.

There was a girl that worked at the office. Charlie was her name. I think it was probably a nickname for Charlotte...

Charlie Cronander who eventually married Fred Smith?

That was her! She was a couple of rungs up the ladder higher than I was in terms of knowledge and whatnot, and I guess she was pretty smart because she was producing a song for their company. I had a thing for older girls, and I thought, Ooh, maybe I can help! Anyway I was always hanging around there as best I could. She didn't pay a lot of attention to me, I gotta tell you that, and that hurt because I was a good-looking guy back in the day, and I thought, Uh! but nevertheless, I was "innocent until proven guilty".

I was talking to them one day and she was saying she had this project with a couple of guys called Bob and Earl. She was working on a song with them and she'd finished it but she'd run out of money and she couldn't do the final mix. I said, "Well listen, I'm going overseas. I'm going to the South China Sea in about a week, so I'll sell my car 'cause I don't need it when I'm overseas, and I'll give you the money," and I went out there and I sold it. I think I got 800 whole dollars, but it was enough to get the song finished by these guys called Bob and Earl. Overseas, I never got an answer back from her but I did notice that there was a song in the charts by these guys called Bob and Earl, and I thought, OK, well done me!

I got back. I never saw Charlie again, and what shot up the charts? A song called 'The Harlem Shuffle', by Bob and Earl!

There's been a huge backlash against the use of AI in radio recently with iHeartMedia for example initiating what they call a "Guaranteed Human" program and reportedly banning AI-generated music (and radio hosts) across thousands of stations. What's your take on it all?

What is it? It's a copy. Supposedly I would imagine that somebody who had enough Rosko material and knew how to do AI could do a Rosko show I guess. So is it "memory or Memorex" as we say in the biz? I'm basically against being imitated especially if you're selling me and then the AI guys get in the loop! But I'm not ashamed of it, I'm not frightened of it. Basically I don't know anything about it. But young people do, and I don't know... If I heard a song on the radio today and I liked it, I really wouldn't give a toss if it was AI or the real deal. If I liked it and it gave me pleasure, I would listen.

There weren't many internet radio stations back in the early 2000s when we first launched Rosko Radio yet there are now over 100,000 internet radio stations and millions of active podcasts online as we speak. The latest figures say an estimated 27,000 new shows are uploaded every day.

Rosko Radio is very near and dear to my heart. Well, it started off back in early days with you, because you knew how to do things on the internet and I was still too old, remember I'm almost approaching mid-eighties in age here, so I never had a clue. I mean, the last time I saw anything exciting was when they invented video for MTV etc, after that I slowly just coasted away from the modern stuff and I did Rosko Radio at your suggestion and it was not any particular vision music-wise, it was just fun, freewheeling radio - heavy on the soul if I remember. There was a certain period when it was number one everywhere on the internet when they were actually keeping count of the people who listened to that kind of stuff. It was fun in its time.

People often ask where to find you these days and I know there's a form of Rosko Radio still going somewhere on the planet. What's the best way for fans to tune-in?

Today it is basically Rosko Radio LA Connection shows. I don't think there are any others. There are a few floating around especially made for Rosko Radio. It is on my website, EmperorRosko.net - there's something like 24 hours of non-stop Rosko shows put together. So it still exists; perhaps not in the original forward-thinking, free-thinking way we wanted it to happen. Please listen in and enjoy, and drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you.

Visit Rosko's website: EmperorRosko.net