Role model, mentor championed Black lives
An iconic figure in the Jamaican Canadian community, the reggae and entertainment scenes
When Denise Jones was added to the roll of 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women in 2018, she passed on some advice to the generation to come.
“Don’t let your address define you,” said Jones. “Choose your career from what you love and know that change is OK. Not one but five careers are possible for your generation.”
Jones led by example. She was an iconic figure in the Jamaican Canadian community, the world of reggae and the Black entertainment scene, producing and promoting many top artists. She was a role model, a mentor. She championed Black lives her entire life. She gave people opportunities.
On Dec. 3, Jones, 64, who operated Jones and Jones Productions with her husband, Allan, died at her Brampton home, surrounded by family, after a brain cancer diagnoses last year began to slow a “force” of a human being.
The news prompted an outpouring of tributes for a “trailblazer” and “reggae warrior.”
“Farewell to a fearless leader, a passionate advocate for Black music, and a wonderful member of the #Junos family,” read a tweet from the Juno Awards. Jones was a founding chair of the Juno reggae category, and spent “countless hours helping to promote and celebrate Canadian talent.”
“Shocked and saddened to hear that Denise Jones, one of the most tireless advocates of reggae in this city and country, has gone to the great spirit in the sky,” music journalist Errol Nazareth wrote on Twitter. “I loved your energy and smile and lovely accent.”
“She didn’t even break down the walls, she busted them wide open for thousands of people who followed in her giant footsteps,” music publicist Eric Alper wrote on Twitter.
Brampton-based artist Exco Levi called Jones his “brilliant manager, friend, mother and teacher” for the past decade, during which he won five Juno Awards and was nominated for another two, won a Harry Jerome Award and was inducted into the Brampton Walk of Fame, all under the “skilful guidance of Denise,” Levi wrote on Facebook.
Jones toured with Levi across eastern Canada and into the U.S. by bus with “no complaints, she was there, a WARRIOR,” wrote Levi. Though she was somewhat disappointed the last time they were on the road last February and headed to Denmark. “I can still remember Mrs. Jones dancing after the show and calling me a party pooper,” wrote Levi.
Kardinal Offishall, the Canadian rapper, said on Instagram that artists get to where they get because they are “Standing on the shoulders of GIANTS” and Jones was one of them.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Twitter called Jones an “incredible advocate for Black and Caribbean arts and culture” who “contributed so much to our country. Sophie and I join members of the Jamaican-Canadian community who are mourning her passing, and we send our deepest condolences to her family and friends.”
Denise Jones was born April 23, 1956, and grew up in Port Antonio, Portland Parrish, in east Jamaica, where she attended Titchfield High School, according to a tribute letter from Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s minister of culture, gender, entertainment and sport.
“On behalf of the government and the people of Jamaica, I extend love and prayers to her family and the Jamaican diaspora in Canada, who continue to mourn her loss, but celebrate her memory and legacy,” wrote Grange.
Jones’s entertainment career began in
Jamaica as an actor in several stage productions. She studied communications at the University of Windsor, then returned to Jamaica to use her news skills in the world of reggae and reggae-inspired artists.
She and Allan, who was also into acting and the stage, made a permanent move to Canada and settled first in Sudbury. Jesse, their first son, came in 1981 and Jerimi, their second, five years later. The Joneses busied themselves in plays and theatre productions, making weekend trips to and from Toronto, where they’d set up at the Jamaican Canadian Association on Arrow Road, Jesse, now 39, recalled in an interview.
Live concerts came next. If you were an up-and-coming reggae artist, you benefited from Jones and Jones Productions. Big time. The company began hosting major events in 1987, with the advent of Reggae On Yah at The Great Hall.
The family eventually moved to Scarborough and then, in 1997, to Brampton, and all the while the projects grew and multiplied.
In 1993, Jones and Jones came up with Reggaebana, which according to one of their event websites was created to “infuse reggae” into Caribana. The festival started at the El Mocambo, moved to the Opera House then on to Ontario Place. The first Jambana, the current Jones family-produced annual affair, was held in 2009 at Downsview Park, drawing a crowd of 45,000.
When there was no sitter to be found, the Jones boys found themselves “sleeping under tables, backstage, at some of the biggest reggae concerts and productions that the country had ever seen,” said Jesse who, along with Jerimi, is part of the family business. “That’s how I grew up. It was normal to see my parents dreaming and doing.”
Jones and Jones brought the likes of Toots and the Maytals and, just last year, rising Jamaican reggae star Koffee to the city. Jones pushed the Juno Awards to establish a distinct category for reggae and because of that, the award serves as a springboard for Canadian artists. In 1997, the Star named Jones one of the
Toronto entertainment scene’s people with clout.
Yet there was more than that to Jones. Jones, said Jesse, was a “mega force. As a young Black kid, I didn’t see any limits because at home I didn’t see them. We’re at a time now when all of this stuff has come up to the forefront, the Black lives and all of the things we’re seeing, in social media movements and companies now being, like, ‘We need to understand this more, it’s on our radar.’ And I get all that. But my mother was repping that and championing that when no one was talking about that.”
Every New Year’s Day, the Joneses opened their home to friends and family for a drop-in. It was an annual treat for friend Pamela Appelt, who got to know Jones through their shared interest in community involvement. “She got really involved in community building,” said Appelt, Canada’s first Black woman to serve as a citizen court judge.
Jones was deeply involved in the Jamaican Canadian Association and the Black Business and Professional Association. She would emcee events and was a mainstay at the Harry Jerome Awards — and a recipient of one of those herself in 2014.
“To grow up around that presence, you just believe things are possible, you see it happening every day and I am forever grateful for that.”
JESSE JONES
DENISE JONES’ SON
So busy she was at times, Jones would drop in at Appelt’s home between commitments and have a nap. “She lived a full life, a giving life,” said Appelt. “I will cherish the memories.”
Kayla Thompson got a break when Jones hired her as an executive assistant and soon found herself doing event planning and co-hosting a radio show and, later, a short-lived television segment with Jones.
“She started off as my boss and that turned into somebody I could call family,” said Thompson, 31, who worked with Jones for about five years. “She gave everyone an opportunity.”
Last summer came the diagnosis of glioblastoma. Jones was in good spirits, even doing a reggae “two step” into surgery, said Jesse. His mother was out of hospital by August and able to attend Jambana 2019, an event that for the first time had to be nailed down without her.
When mother and son first laid eyes on each other at the festival at Brampton’s Garden Square, Jones had a question for Jesse: “Are you standing up?” It was her way of asking if her babies were ready to run the show that had been her baby. And they were. “Then we both cried,” said Jesse.
As her time grew shorter, home care and support workers and her son Jerimi were a constant at her side, said Jesse.
“As I grieve, and I continue to grieve, and I’ve been in and out of tears, I feel like really blessed, man, to be able to say that that was my mother,” said Jesse.
“To grow up around that presence, you just believe things are possible, you see it happening every day and I am forever grateful for that, because I think that’s the most important thing you can give somebody, hope and belief in themselves. My mom did this for us at home, but also as I’m seeing every day with these tweets and social, she seemed to be doing it for a lot of other people, too.”
Jones leaves husband, Allan, sons Jesse and Jerimi, mother Louise Oates, sister Devan Oates and brother Gary Oates. In normal times, there would have been a massive send-off. The family was finalizing funeral plans at time of publication.