Ron Nelson Email & Phone Number

Ron Nelson was born in Jamaica, and his work as a DJ and radio personality is extensive; he built a radio station in the cafeteria at Victoria Park Secondary School. He then attended Ryerson’s RTA media program in 1983, and was hired when on his first day he applied to play music on CKLN 88.1fm community radio. While playing funk initially, Nelson would later begin playing early rap records that would characterize hip-hop music in the mid 1980s. After being fired for “playing too much Black music,” Ron would return to CKLN a few months later with his own show. Fantastic Voyage became a long-lasting staple in Toronto at a time when it was difficult to find hip hop content on Canadian airwaves and became a major source for Toronto’s uprising artists and DJs. While hosting and producing Fantastic Voyage, his Ron Nelson Productions organized a slew of memorable concerts featuring groundbreaking US artists and local and undiscovered talent spirited with classic DJ competitions and rap battles such as Monster Jam, Rap Attack, and New York Invades Toronto. The list of artists Ron Nelson brought to Toronto include Roxanne Shante, Ice Cube, Biz Markie, Queen Latifah, Run DMC, Public Enemy, EPMD, BDP, Yo-Yo, Eric B. & Rakim, and Salt-N-Pepa. Nelson would also create a hip hop Apache recording studio in his Toronto home which also hosted Beat Factory Records. In 1988, he released his own B-Boy Destruction 12” and produced two tracks on Canada’s notable Dream Warriors’ 1991 album And Now the Legacy Begins. Furthered by his degree in Radio and TV Arts, Ron was a professor and course director at York University, where he taught the course “Contemporary Black Urban Music” between 2005-2017. Inspired again by his love for Black music, he returned to CKLN to host ReggaeMania on Friday nights in 1993 - 2011 when the station officially went off the air. Anyone who is interested in the foundations of Canada’s now explosive hip hop scene needs to listen to Ron Nelson describe the ways that he put Toronto on the map. His colourful stories (some of which can be heard in Ron Nelson’s Archive Collection) detail the innovative ways that he infiltrated radio airwaves and event spaces to grow a vibrant hip hop scene in Toronto. Despite various roadblocks, Nelson’s legacy in radio and in concert promotion demonstrates the ingenuity and perseverance necessary to create a cultural movement in Toronto during the 80s and 90s that would only recently be recognized internationally.

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  Oct 2020 - Present

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  Ryerson University

  Radio And Television