Underground artists, straight from the source.
QSJ Radio Podcast is a music-interview feed built around unsigned and underground artists. Traffic Light keeps the pace loose and direct, moving from song backstories into career lessons, family memories, creative pressure, and the practical grind behind independent releases.
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QSJ Radio Podcast is built for the unsigned artist lane. The show gives underground musicians a place to explain the sound, the backstory, and the grind that sits behind a release. Traffic Light leads most of these conversations with a live-radio looseness, greeting listeners, resetting the context, and then pushing guests toward the earliest memory, the hard lesson, or the song that changed the room. It is fast, warm, and sometimes rough around the edges. That texture matters. The episodes do not feel like short promotional stops; they feel like long-form check-ins with artists still figuring out how to turn feeling into work and work into momentum. Mickey Barry talks through The Julia Set's move from covers into original material and the complications of changing the rules midstream. Noel DaCosta speaks about balancing creative control, regular releases, live performance, a day job, and personal grief. Jasmine Catherine is framed through theatrical songwriting, classical training, and a mythic sense of story. Joe Truscott's conversation moves through DIY recording, work at sea, independence, and songs that keep their first emotional truth. Dr. Smooth Lane breaks down beats, production, confidence, and the pride of hearing growth in a track. Rodes brings the harder business talk, especially around promotion, broadcast readiness, talent, and the long grind beyond social media. The show can be playful one minute and unexpectedly serious the next. It often uses a track title or lyric as a doorway into bigger questions about identity, control, family, faith in the process, and the cost of staying true. The result is a discovery show with a practical pulse. It hears underground music not as a genre tag, but as a working condition: making songs before the industry arrives, without waiting for permission.
Made for: QSJ Radio Podcast is for listeners who like independent music discovery with conversation attached: songwriters, rappers, vocalists, band fans, and anyone curious about the work behind unsigned releases.
What sets it apart: The show keeps the promotional polish low and the artist context high. Its strength is the way track reactions, career advice, mistakes, grief, humor, and DIY business talk all sit in the same room.
QSJ Radio's #MADLUH Podcast is known for putting new Artist on the right path for success. Dedicated to the promotion of Artist from the world of the Underground.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Artist conversations connect songwriting and sound to the practical decisions that keep independent music careers moving.
Traffic Light treats an artist interview as equal parts creative conversation and reality check. QSJ Radio Podcast gives independent musicians room to explain how songs take shape, then presses on promotion costs, home recording, live work, contracts, day jobs, and the move from…
Traffic Light lets your next music discovery talk day jobs as frankly as songs.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A candid, warm look at The Julia Set's move from cover gigs and lineup changes into original songs.
The Julia Set comes through as a band shaped by atmosphere, emotion, and an interest in patterns that shift without quite repeating. The review is strongest when it follows Mickey Barry from cover gigs into original material, where shorter sets, different rooms, and changed…
Noel DaCosta reflects on grief, live performance, and the persistence behind sustaining an independent music career.
Noel DaCosta's QSJ Radio appearance is most useful as a ground-level portrait of an independent vocalist and songwriter trying to keep momentum while real life keeps its own schedule.
Dr. Smooth Lane talks about producing his music, "The Lows" and making time to create around work.
QSJ Radio host Traffic Light asks Dr. Smooth Lane how he makes music around work. Lane describes writing lyrics or recording when the urge strikes, then setting the idea aside until he can return to it. He produces his own songs and works with different sound engineers.
A candid QSJ Radio conversation about sea work, home recording, and protecting a song's first feeling.
Joe Truscott's path from sea work and earlier service into independent songwriting gives this QSJ Radio conversation a grounded shape. The Portsmouth songwriter discusses writing, recording, and producing much of his own material while balancing music with life away from the…
Rodis ties Chicago roots and raw bars to the hard math of staying independent.
Rodis is framed as a Chicago hip-hop veteran looking back at the moment he first picked up a mic, after joking that New Edition was not the path, and using that memory to explain a longer independent run.
Barbara J. Hunt connects forgiveness, emotional healing, and songwriting in a reflective conversation about music as part of the remedy.
Barbara J. Hunt's conversation with QSJ Radio looks at forgiveness through the lens of music, asking how private feeling can become something shared.
Joe Wong interviews drummers and musicians about craft, history, and the working musician's life.
Lij Shaw interviews producers and engineers about mic technique, mixing, and studio business.
Ian Shepherd and working mastering engineers dig into Atmos, loudness wars, and vinyl cutting.
Co-hosts Ed Thorne and Paul Third dissect mixing, mastering, and studio gear with working engineers.
PG Brown discusses his passion for live streaming music reviews and engaging with his audience as a hobby.
An interview with the band The Julia Set, exploring their mathematical name, creative process, and journey as unsigned artists.
QSJ Radio’s Mad La and Traffic Light speak with Noel DaCosta about “Shake Your Bum Bum,” “10 Ounces,” “The Happy Clapper,” and the new single “Lockdown.” Noel says “Shake Your Bum Bum” started with his seven-year-old son repeating “shake my bum bum” during COVID, then later became a release after his son died from left heart hyperplastic syndrome.
An interview with UK singer-songwriter Jasmine Catherine about her cinematic, theatrical approach to songwriting.
Host Traffic Light interviews singer-songwriter Diddie Hair about his musical journey from Kingston to the UK, blending pop with heartfelt storytelling.
Host Traffic Light introduces an interview with genre-defying artist Yelé, exploring her South London roots and Sierra Leonean heritage.
Dr. Smooth Lane says “Counterfeit Monopoly” was his first public release and a “transitional track.”
Joe Truscott tells QSJ Radio that he wrote his first song, 'Come Back,' at eight years old with his cousin on guitar, and he says he has 'not really stopped since then.' He links that early writing habit to a DIY method that feels more like journaling than conversation, because he says writing lets him 'get it out' when talking does not.
QSJ Radio's Rodis interview centers Chicago hip-hop veteran Rodis, the Rodis Podcast, and a new project built around features and self-education.
Barbara J.
An interview with Gabi MC, an unsigned artist from West Palm Beach with Cuban heritage, discussing his lifelong passion for music.
Interview with Christian music legend Steve Camp about his new single 'Emmanuel' and his career.