LAMAMIMET

Andy Kershaw was born on 9 November 1959 in Littleborough, Lancashire, to a headmaster father and a nursery‑school headmistress mother. He attended Hulme Grammar School and later studied politics at the University of Leeds, where he became Entertainments Secretary and began organising concerts.

After university he worked at Radio Aire, where he launched his broadcasting career and briefly served as a roadie for Billy Bragg. In 1984 he was invited to present the BBC TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test and co‑presented the Live Aid television coverage in 1985, leading to his appointment as a BBC Radio 1 DJ later that year.

During his fifteen‑year tenure on Radio 1, Kershaw built a reputation for his enthusiastic, genre‑spanning shows that introduced listeners to African, reggae, folk and other global music, earning him a Sony Gold Award in 1987 and making him one of the first mainstream presenters to play artists such as Ali Farka Touré. He later moved to BBC Radio 3, continued to produce documentary features, and contributed reports to Radio 4 programmes covering conflicts in Rwanda, Angola and Haiti.

Kershaw published his autobiography No Off Switch in 2011 and remained active in broadcasting until his death on 16 April 2026 at the age of 66, leaving a legacy as a pioneering advocate for world music and a distinctive voice in British radio.