On the Air From the Rez

There is a particular sound a reservation radio station makes after five o’clock on a Thursday. Not the polite hush of public radio. Not the national-voice sheen of a corporate playlist. It is closer to a kitchen with the window open: bass first, then laughter, then somebody in the next room yelling a song request like it is a matter of tribal law. That is the hour The Sesh occupies on 105.3 WRLN, Red Lake Nation Radio — two live hours that belong, unapologetically, to NativeCare.

Call it what it is. A sesh. Not a press conference. Not a menu read. A long, smoked-out, hip-hop-forward hang that happens to be broadcasting from the same Nation that opened Minnesota’s first adult-use cannabis dispensary and then refused to treat the plant like a tourist attraction. The show lives where the brand already lives: at the intersection of sovereignty, quality flower, and the kind of community radio that still answers the phone.

The Architect

The Sesh did not fall out of a marketing deck. It was built by Terrell Charnoski — NativeCare brand ambassador, event man, reservation kid, the person the team sends when a room needs a pulse. In early 2026 he walked into WRLN and did the oldest radio move in the book: he started a show because the frequency was there and the culture needed a home that was not an algorithm.

WRLN announced the debut in mid-January. Thursdays. Five to seven. Live. The comments under the station post read like a family group chat. Congratulations, Terrell. Howah. WTG. People who had watched him work events, represent the brand, and carry Red Lake into rooms that used to pretend the Northwoods did not grow anything this loud. When Minnesota flipped the switch on adult-use cannabis, Red Lake Nation did not wait for a permission slip from St. Paul. NativeCare opened August 1, 2023 — same day the law allowed it — and became the first legal recreational dispensary in the state. Charnoski has been inside that story since the medical days, watching a tribal enterprise turn into a brand with stores in Red Lake, Thief River Falls, West St. Paul, and now the Twin Cities. The radio show was the next logical room: if you can build a counter, you can build a booth.

He said as much when he sat down with Canna Connect earlier this year. The Sesh, he explained, started music-first. Hip-hop, mostly — the music he loves — plus the requests pouring in from the NativeCare team, because a good radio show is a group project pretending to be one person with headphones. Guests would come. Informational segments would come. The controls would get learned the only way they ever get learned: by putting your hands on them while the ON AIR light is already hot.

What a Sesh Sounds Like

The name is the brief. A sesh is time set aside. It is friends, music, the plant, and the permission to not rush. On WRLN that translates into a two-hour block that can move from a new NativeCare drop to a birthday shout-out to a record that still slaps in a pickup on Highway 1. It is cannabis culture without the trade-show lanyard. It is Red Lake without the museum lighting.

Minnesota’s legal market is still young enough to sound like a press release if you let it. The Sesh is the antidote. The show treats flower the way a good late-night host treats a record: as something you live with, not something you lecture about. Strain talk sits next to song talk. Sovereignty sits next to jokes. The Nation that made history with a dispensary now makes noise with a microphone, which is a more dangerous combination than most corporate cannabis brands will ever understand.

Because this is not content. Content is what you post when you want engagement. A radio show on a tribal frequency is what you build when you want a place. People in Red Lake, Ponemah, Little Rock, and the cars pointed south toward the Cities can all catch the same two hours and feel like they walked into the same room. That is older than Instagram and, on a good Thursday, better.

 

The New Voices in the Booth

Every radio show that lasts has a second act, and The Sesh just opened one. Charnoski built the thing — found the slot, set the tone, taught the room how a NativeCare night is supposed to feel. Now two new hosts have stepped into the booth to carry the frequency forward.

This is not a rebrand. It is a handoff, which in Indian Country is a more serious verb. You do not throw a show at people and hope the playlist survives. You give them the room Terrell wired, the Thursday hours the station already trusts, and the audience that already knows when to turn the knob. The new hosts inherit a live wire: hip-hop in the speakers, NativeCare in the bloodstream, Red Lake on the legal ID.

What they bring is the thing a founder cannot scale by himself — chemistry. One voice can start a show. Two voices can argue, finish each other’s sentences, take a call, bury a track, and make two hours feel like twenty minutes. That is the job now. Keep the sesh a sesh. Keep it local enough to shout out a cousin and big enough to soundtrack a brand that has already outgrown a single zip code.

Watch them. The best radio duos do not sound like they rehearsed the bit. They sound like they already had the conversation in the parking lot and decided the rest of northern Minnesota deserved to hear it. If Charnoski’s era was the proof of concept — that NativeCare belongs on the air, not just on a menu — the new hosts’ era is the proof of life. The show is no longer a one-man experiment. It is a crew.

Why the Frequency Matters

There is a reason this story does not belong in a trade newsletter. Tribal cannabis in Minnesota is not a novelty SKU. It is a sovereign economic engine with real stores, real jobs, and a three-year head start the rest of the state is still chasing. NativeCare has thrown anniversary bashes with Snotty Nose Rez Kids, opened urban doors without sanding off the Red Lake accent, and kept the plant tied to a Nation instead of a holding company.

Radio is the oldest distribution system that still feels like a gathering. WRLN is not a streaming afterthought. It is Red Lake Nation Radio — the station that calls the Warriors games, takes Thursday-morning requests, and now gives cannabis culture two live hours that do not have to apologize for existing. In a market drowning in sameness, that is a flex. Charnoski understood the assignment before most brands knew there was one: if you want culture, you cannot rent it from an influencer for a weekend. You have to build a night people return to. The Sesh is that night. The creator put it on the board. The two new hosts are about to find out how loud a Thursday can get when the whole Nation is listening.

Stay On

The instructions are simple. Thursday. Five to seven. 105.3 FM. WRLN. If you are on the reservation, the signal is already in the trees. If you are in the Cities, find the stream and act like you made the drive. Bring a request. Bring a story. Bring whatever you smoke when the week finally sits down.

Terrell Charnoski created The Sesh so NativeCare would have a voice that sounded like home. The two new hosts are what happens when that voice grows a second and third set of lungs. The light is on. The board is live. Do not make them talk to themselves.

LISTEN

The Sesh with NativeCare  ·  Thursdays 5–7 p.m.  ·  105.3 WRLN Red Lake Nation Radio