J1

Director, Hip Hop Programming, Content & Curation, Pandora

Joshua “J1” Raiford has always had a passion for the music business since he was a 14 year old DJ in Harlem, NYC. After graduating from Morehouse College, J1 worked to become one of the hottest club DJs in Atlanta which helped get him a position as an on-air mixer on Hot 107.9. He quickly rose through the Radio One ranks ultimately becoming Program Director of the historic WKYS in Washington, DC. After taking the station number one, J1 was recruited by Pandora Music in the beginning of 2019 to be their new Head of Hip Hop.

In his short tenure with Pandora J1 has already changed the Urban landscape by creating new and exclusive content series such as “The Sirius XM Pandora Playback,” “New Music Friday Top 3” and “The Connect 4 Convo.” He has also created one of the biggest stations/playlists for Hip Hop and R&B “Top Shelf,” which has over 5 million listeners. In July 2020 J1 successful helped program and launch “Uninterrupted Radio” on Pandora in partnership with LeBron James and Maverick Carter, and was promoted to Director of Hip Hop Curation & Content.