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Denham Jolly reflects on Canada's first black-owned radio station

Denham Jolly is the man behind Flow 93.5 and in his new memoir, In the Black: My Life, he looks back at life in Canada in the '50s and the discrimination he's had to overcome.
CBC Radio · February 21, 2017 Denham Jolly and Tom Power in the q studios in Toronto, Ont. (Melody Lau/CBC)

Without Denham Jolly, we wouldn't have had Canada's first black-owned radio station, an on-air space to showcase hip-hop and R&B and, last but not least, we might not have had rapper Drake.

Jolly is the man behind Flow 93.5, a radio station that kicked off in 2001 and was the first place to play Drake's music. Beyond that, though, Jolly has had a fascinating life that started in Jamaica, found him taking a turn as a high school teacher and only being able to launch Flow 93.5 after a 12-year battle to get a license for a black-owned station.

All of this and more is detailed in his new memoir, In the Black: My Life, out this March. Today, Jolly joins Tom Power to discuss his long journey and the pivotal musical he's taken in throughout the years.

— Produced by Ty Callender

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