The new voice of great Canadian music

As a kid, Rich Terfry went to great heights to listen to the radio. Growing up in tiny Mount Uniacke, outside Halifax, he would climb a tree to pick up the signal of his favourite hip-hop show on CKDU, Dalhousie’s campus radio. Now his voice travels the airwaves as the new host of Drive, a program featuring independent, mostly Canadian music on CBC Radio 2.

Music has always been part of Terfry’s life. While attending Saint Mary’s University in the early 1990s, he started garnering attention for the hip-hop music he made under the moniker Buck 65. He left school in to pursue a musical career and has since released 12 albums, signed with Warner, and toured the world.

While waiting to board a plane to China for a show last year, Terfry received a call from a CBC producer offering him the job hosting the new national show. More than 800 people had applied. After taking a week to think about whether he could balance his music with a full-time gig, he said yes, taking over the time slot previously held by classical-music enthusiast Jurgen Gothe. Terfry says that while his show is a transition for some listeners, he isn’t out to push a hip-hop agenda and checks most of his Buck 65 persona at the door.

Terfry makes no apologies, however, for promoting artists from home. “It’s just an impulse, and I don’t let myself feel guilty for that,” he says. “If I can fight to give Nova Scotia an advantage, well, good.” The 37-year-old, who lives with his fiancée in Toronto, says they have been “daydreaming” about moving back East.

Terfry remains grateful to the Nova Scotians who have supported him throughout his career. “The biggest seducer is when anybody says, ‘Hey, you’re good at that!’ I was young and aimless, like most people. Hearing those words were like a big set of French windows to the world being thrown open. I never looked back.”