Rest Assured in 2022: How to get into Radio

Swarzy Macaly
Founder and Creator of Too Much Source

Swarzy Macaly is a radio presenter at BBC Radio 1XTRA. She presents the Weekend Breakfast Show every Saturday morning from 7-10am. Swarzy was awarded Best Presenter at the UK Entertainment Awards in 2021. In 2020, she was nominated for the Duke and Duchess's list of Black History Month Next Generation Trailblazers by Lord Simon Woolley, who commended her for her charisma, passion for young people and social justice, and her work with the youth-led charity My Life My Say.

Fee Mak is a Radio and TV presenter based in London and currently hosts Weekend breakfast on 1xtra every Sunday morning. 

Fee started her presenting career at CSR 97.4FM, while studying her BA (Hons) French and Business Administration at the University of Kent. 
The aim of her show was to showcase the best upcoming new talent which included early music from now established Knucks and DC. 
Fee was then picked up from her university show by Westside Radio 89.6FM in London where her skills were developed under mentorship, eventually leading her to host the drivetime show ‘The Jam’. 

During Christmas 2019, Fee hosted drivetime on BBC Radio 1 after being selected through their presenter search, which led to a month of Early Breakfast on Radio 1 alongside daytime cover shows.

Fee made her debut on BBC Radio 1xtra where she deputised throughout the daytime schedule before landing the Sunday Breakfast show. 

During Fee’s career in broadcast, she’s done many projects for digital platforms such as hosting the music show ‘Hype Right Now’ on Kiss TV (4Music) and interviewing a number of established artists including Ray BLK, FLO & Kaash Paige, just to name a few. 

As a host, Fee has presented a variety of live events, including the Urban Talent Show at Westfield London, London’s oldest carnival ‘Hanwell Carnival’ and the inaugural Young Ealing Foundation awards. 
 

Keana Bernard's career in radio started way back in 2010 when she was just 14yrs old doing work experience at Choice FM (now Capital Xtra). Keana then went on to volunteer at various local community stations until finally landing a position as a Broadcast Assistant in 2017 at Rinse FM. 

Within just two years Keana worked her way up the ranks to become the station's Head of Production and in 2019 she accepted a position as Assistant Producer at the BBC working across Radio 1 & 1Xtra. Within six months at the BBC, Keana led her own creative music project where she pitched, organised, produced and edited a station-wide live music project to commemorate the anniversary of the Grenfell Tower disaster. 

Keana is now a Producer of Music Content, Radio & Podcasts for BBC 1Xtra & BBC Sounds and presents a show herself on BBC Sounds called 'Throwback Party'. This year alone, Keana has led the production on various radio and live music broadcasts including producing the live stream of Kendrick Lamar's headline set at Glastonbury Festival 2022.

Marcel Lawson is a Producer-Director in the Visual Department. 
 
He regularly directs live music performances from the Live Lounge, to 1Xtra in Jamaica which have each generated millions of views. 
 
As well as music and entertainment Marcel was director of the ‘This Is Amapiano’ Documentary and ‘1Xtra Talks: George Floyd Special’.  
 
He was also the Producer-Editor on ‘Up Yours Corona’ which won a ‘Best Virtual Event’ at the Radio Europe Awards. 
 
 

Jerelle Forbes is a radio broadcaster based in northwest London, currently working in BBC 1Xtra every weekend as assistant producer, on the  the Afro beats chart show and The Asian network. 
 
Outside the BBC Jerelle works with National prison radio as a Presenter and producer, taking over the “urban show” rebranding into what we know now as “Street heat” which is broadcasted every Thursday to make and female prisons all over the UK.