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Toronto’s Kensington Market in the 1960s was already the city’s most culturally diverse neighbourhood, a place writer Adele Wiseman described as brimming with “the sounds of Yiddish, Portuguese, Italian and the smell of fresh bread, brine and live chickens.” Within a few years, the Market’s sounds and smells grew infinitely richer and more tropical with the arrival of Caribbean entrepreneurs such as Stranger Cole. Cole, a renowned singer from Jamaica, accepted a friend’s offer to share space in his carpet store at 58 Kensington Avenue and began to sell recordings of jazz, gospel, disco and, predominantly, reggae music. Opening in 1978, Cole’s newly christened Roots Records became one of the ...

Denise Jones wore many hats: actress, dancer, artist manager, concert presenter, festival producer, event planner and mother of two. A pillar, along with her husband, Allan, of the Jamaican-Canadian community, she worked tirelessly throughout her career to promote Caribbean culture – first through plays and pantomimes and then through reggae concerts and arts festivals – to increasingly larger audiences. The multifaceted businesswoman was also a strong activist, championing diversity long before “Black Lives Matter” became a popular movement. In 1989, in the wake of the police shooting death of Mississauga Black teenager Wade Lawson, Ms. Jones spoke to a task force on race relations and crit...