The Brief

What is Lunar New Year?

Saturday, Feb. 10, marks the Lunar New Year, welcoming the Chinese zodiac Year of the Dragon. This celebration is observed by millions worldwide, including China, Vietnam, Korea, and, of course, connected communities in Los Angeles.

Each community celebrates the festival differently, with different food traditions. We’ve pulled together some culinary offerings around L.A. this year.

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year activities typically start with some thorough house cleaning before the new year itself. Homes are decorated in red for good luck. The foods traditionally eaten for Chinese New Year are symbolic of longevity and prosperity in some way, usually because of the shape or because the names of the dishes are homophones for related words.

Here are some of the foods typically eaten on Chinese New Year:

Whole fish

The word for fish in Mandarin, yú, is a homophone for another word that means “abundance” or “surplus” — hence, eating fish on Chinese New Year is considered lucky and will bring abundance in the new year. The fish is usually served whole and reflects completion from the beginning to the end, but this is not always the case, especially for smaller households.

Bistro Na's in Temple City provides an array of dishes to help you ring in the Lunar New Year in style.

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Bistro Na's

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Some of the fish specials you can find around town this year include:

• Bistro Na’s is offering different Lunar New Year sets that serve 6-10 people, and all of them include at least one fish dish.
• Crustacean Beverly Hills is offering a $188 eight-course (because eight is an auspicious number) dinner extravaganza with crispy dover sole, black truffle turnip cakes, and more. The dining room will be decked out in Lunar New Year decorations and there will be live entertainers throughout the night. 
• Paradise Dynasty is offering some special dishes like Singapore-style black pepper lobster. There will also be a steamed Chilean sea bass and eight treasure sticky rice for dessert, another popular Lunar New Year treat. The special dishes are available now through March 31, 2024. 
• Steep will have a collaboration dinner with Chef Anthony Wang on Feb. 9-10. There will be an eight-course menu featuring steamed rockfish, radish cake with XO sauce, braised pork belly with abalone, and more.

Poon choi

Poon choi from Collette in Pasadena, a traditional Cantonese festival dish featuring layers of different ingredients and is consumed communally.

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This traditional Cantonese meal translates to “basin vegetables” and is served in a large basin. It’s not all vegetables, though — the Lunar New Year poon choi usually also contains several luxurious ingredients like abalone, sea cucumber, BBQ and more.

Poon choi has become a popular Lunar New Year dish in Los Angeles over the past couple of years, with many restaurants offering it at this time of year.

Order the dish from Hop Woo BBQ & Seafood Restaurant, Capital Seafood, Ho Kee Cafe, Sea Harbour, and many others. Colette in Pasadena will also offer poon choi by pre-order this year, and there are two sizes available: one that feeds six and a larger one for ten people.

Tray of togetherness

The tray of togetherness is a tray filled with sweets with symbolic meanings that are served to guests. The tray usually has six or eight compartments with various sweets including candied lotus roots, which symbolize abundance, candied coconut, which symbolizes togetherness, and candied lotus seeds for fertility.

Different versions of the tray can be found at Asian grocery stores such as 99 Ranch Market and 168 Market.

Nián gāo

This dense, glutinous rice cake is another traditional symbolic food. The name, nián gāo, sounds similar to words that mean “getting higher every year” and thus symbolizes growth and progress. While there is both a sweet and savory version, the sweet version is more popular, made with glutinous rice flour and sweetened with brown sugar (some versions may also use chestnuts or red beans). In L.A., you can get them at:

• Kee Wah Bakery. In addition to the rice cake, the bakery also has an assortment of gift sets in Chinese New Year packaging.  
• Woon, which is serving Chinese New Year specials from Feb. 7-11, including savory, stir-fried nián gāo. Woon will also turn up the festivities with red envelope roulette with prizes like t-shirts and free noodles. 

Jiaozi

Jiaozi is the crescent-shaped dumplings that you may know as potstickers. Although dumplings in general are commonly found at celebrations, jiaozi is typically eaten during Chinese New Year as an auspicious food, since the shape of the dumplings resemble the gold ingots or sycee used as currency in imperial China.

Dumplings galore including jiaozi, the crescent-shaped dumpling, at Din Tai Fung for Lunar New Year.

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You can find jiaozi or potstickers at many restaurants around L.A., including:

• Din Tai Fung, which also serves crescent shaped dumplings in addition to their famous xiao long bao. From Feb. 8-12, Din Tai Fung will be giving guests a red envelope containing a certificate for a free soy noodle appetizer (to be used for a future visit). One lucky guest will get a Golden Ticket, allowing access to the restaurant’s VIP reservation service, which pretty much guarantees you can always get a reservation. 

Lo hei or yusheng

Yee Sang from Sam Tan's Kitchen, a Cantonese-style raw fish salad, consisting of strips of raw fish, mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments.

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Even within Chinese New Year celebrations, there are quite a few regional variations. For example, the Cantonese lo hei — also called yusheng, or “prosperity toss” — is a raw fish salad that is “tossed” on Chinese New Year and symbolizes abundance. Yusheng is popular among the Chinese communities in Singapore and Malaysia.

Here in L.A., you can pre-order it at:

• Malaysianfoodloversla, which sells them via Instagram for pickup in Arcadia. They’re offering three different seafood toppings: fried shrimp, cocktail shrimp or arctic surf clam. 
• Ms. Chi Cafe, in Culver City, will be offering a special six-course Lunar New Year menu that includes a yusheng salad, followed by golden chicken jiaozi symbolizing wealth, longevity noodles with spicy garlic prawns, Chilean sea bass and more. The $69 menu will be served at dinner from Feb. 9-25.
• Home chef Sam Tan’s Kitchen will have lo hei available for pick up from Feb. 3-24.

Seollal

In Korean, Lunar New Year is called seollal and it’s typically celebrated over three days. Some traditions are similar to those of Chinese New Year, where people travel to their family homes, perform an ancestral ritual, and young ones bow to the elders to show respect and receive money in a red (or white) packet.

Tteokguk

The main dish eaten for seollal is tteokguk, a rice cake soup traditionally made with beef bone broth. The dish is believed to grant good luck and it’s said that people don’t gain another year of age until they’ve had their bowl of tteokguk. The white of the rice cakes also symbolize purity and a bright new beginning.

• Find tteokguk at Hangari Kalguksu, Ma Dang Gook Soo, Sun Nong Dan and other places in Koreatown. 
• Baekjeong KBBQ and Ahgassi Gopchang will both be serving a complimentary bowl of tteokguk for all guests during lunch and dinner service on February 10. 
• Instead of tteokguk, Yangban Society will be gungjung tteokbokki, or “royal rice cake”. In this royal court version, the rice cakes will be served with braised oxtail, hobak squash, shiitake and preserved black truffles. The gungjung tteokbokki will be available Feb. 9-11.

Jeon

The savory pancakes, jeon, aren’t necessarily a seollal-specific dish, but they make an appearance at all celebrations in Korea, including seollal. Jeon can be made from various vegetables and sometimes also incorporate meat or seafood.

• HanEuem in Koreatown serves a platter of different varieties of jeon.
• Baroo is serving a special seven-course dinner on Feb. 10 which will include a seafood jeon with shrimp and sea cucumber as well as maesaengi tteokguk (rice cake soup with seaweed oyster broth). Book it here.

Tết Nguyên Đán

The Lunar New Year celebration in Vietnam is called Tết Nguyên Đán, or Tết for short, and it means “feast for the first morning” — so you know this new year celebration is all about the food.

Bánh tét or bánh chưng

A must-have for a Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration is bánh tét or bánh chưng. They are glutinous rice cakes wrapped in a banana leaf and typically filled with mung beans and marinated pork. While bánh tét is cylindrical in shape and popular in South Vietnam, bánh chưng is square in shape and eaten more in the northern parts of Vietnam.

The dish is time-consuming to make, and that’s part of its importance, as families spend time together and bond while making it. Around Lunar New Year every year, Bánh Chưng Collective holds a bánh chưng making class. This year’s class will be on Feb. 17, 2024 and attendees will get enough ingredients to make four bánh chưng and everyone will enjoy lunch together (the bánh chưng are taken home to be cooked later).

If you want to enjoy it without making it yourself, though, there are quite a few places to get them in the L.A. area, since bánh tét / bánh chưng are actually eaten year-round. You can find them at various Vietnamese bakeries and delis. Around Tết you can also get some at Sau Can Tho or order them from Kien Gang Bakery while supplies last.

Mut tet

Similar to the Chinese New Year tradition of the tray of togetherness, Vietnamese New Year also has a tray of sweets called mut tet that is used to serve guests during Lunar New Year. Some of the components are also the same, like candied coconut or lotus seeds, but you’d also typically find candied tamarind. You can buy these trays at Vietnamese grocery stores around San Gabriel Valley or Little Saigon.

Splurge-worthy meals

All the auspicious foods listed above are important traditions for many, but really, the most important thing is sharing good food with your loved ones. For many it’s also the time of year to splurge on a dinner too expensive for the day-to-day. There are a number of special dinners happening around town that aren’t about the specific food items, but that are worth looking into:

• Michelin-starred Kato will have their third Lunar New Year dinner series on Feb. 7-9, serving a special menu in collaboration with chefs Daisy Ryan (Bell’s) and Matthew Lightner (okta). The menu hasn’t been finalized yet but reservations can be made here. 
• The high end yakiniku restaurant Niku X will offer a special Lunar New Year tasting menu from Feb. 9-11. The menu costs $250 per person and includes wagyu oxtail potstickers, dry aged sashimi, caviar, and of course, plenty of A5 wagyu for the grill. 
• Merois at The Pendry West Hollywood is also offering a special four-course menu on Feb. 10. The menu costs $165 per person and includes Peking duck, king crab bao and more. There will also be live entertainment throughout the night.
  

Celebrations in Los Angeles

Aside from the food specials we mentioned above, there are also a number of larger community celebrations of Lunar New Year around the Los Angeles area. At these celebrations you’ll find dance performances, cultural showcases, and of course — more food.

Golden Dragon Lunar New Year Parade

The Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles is hosting the 125th annual Golden Dragon Parade on Saturday, Feb. 17. The parade is one of the oldest cultural celebrations in Los Angeles, and certainly one of the oldest Lunar New Year celebrations in the city as well. There will be dance performances and marching bands. The parade will start at the corner of Hill and Ord streets in Chinatown.

UVSA Tết Festival

The UVSA Tết Festival is the largest Vietnamese Lunar New Year Festival in the country and this year it will be held at the OC Fair & Event Center from Feb. 9-11. It's hosted by the Southern California chapter of UVSA, or Union of Vietnamese Student Associations. During the three-day festival, there will be cultural activities, food vendors, firecracker shows and more. There will also be a replica of a traditional Vietnamese village complete with cultural exhibits and galleries for those who want to learn more about Vietnamese culture.

Lunar New Year at Pacific Asia Museum

The USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena will be throwing a Lunar New Year celebration on Saturday, Feb, 10. There will be a traditional Chinese lion dance performance as well as a Korean dance performance, taiko drumming, calligraphy and more. Those attending the celebration will also get free admission to the museum.

Lunar New Year at South Coast Botanic Garden

South Coast Botanic Garden will be celebrating Lunar New Year every weekend in February. On Saturdays and Sundays there will be two daily live performances of lion dancers, martial arts and more. There will also be various activity stations from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., including lantern making, calligraphy and mahjong.

Chinese New Year Festival at The Huntington

On Feb. 10-11 The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens will have a Chinese New Year Celebration. Not only will there be lion dancers and martial arts performances among other entertainment, the various dining venues here will have special menus, serving steamed buns, Chinese mushroom and tofu soup, black bean catfish, Peking duck and more. Reservations are required and can be made here.

MAUM Market

Lunar New Year seems like the perfect time to shop AAPI-owned businesses, and MAUM Market which is LA’s original Asian makers’ market will be holding a market on Saturday, Feb. 10 at ROW DTLA. There will be over 100 Asian-American makers showcasing everything from pottery to cute stationery to food. The market will be held from 12-4 p.m. and entry is free (there’s a free 2-hour parking at ROW DTLA).

Held by the Los Angeles Review of Books since 2019, LITLIT, or The Little Literary Fair, started out as a way to introduce students from workshops to the publishing industry.

It has since grown into a gathering of independent West Coast publishers from Seattle to Santa Monica. This year’s iteration on June 6 and 7 is the biggest yet, with more than 50 publishers participating in the event at Sci-Arc in Downtown L.A.

People look through a small library of used books from "A Good Used Book," a Los Angeles based book pop-up, during LITLIT 2024.

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It’s ‘small’ lit

The fair aims to get the public in front of books that don’t originate from the so-called “Big Five” publishers — behemoths like Penguin Random House and HarperCollins.

“They really get to control what people get to see, and so we hope LITLIT lets people see more of what is out there and what they can support directly,” said Emily VanKoughnett, public programs and engagement director for LARB.

One of VanKoughnett’s favorite independent publishers will be there. Two Lines Press, the publishing arm of San Francisco’s Center for the Art of Translation, deals specifically in translated works.

Two Lines Press, which specializes in translated works, show off their books to attendees of LITLIT.

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They’ve published authors from across the world, translating books from more than 100 different languages into English.

“ We do our work in quiet rooms, so it's really nice to be able to meet readers and talk to them about what's interesting them. These festivals are really valuable to us in that way,” said CJ Evans, publisher and editor-in-chief of Two Lines.

Pressed locally

Local favorite Angel City Press, which operates under the auspices of L.A. Public Library, will also be there with one of their newly published titles, Los Angeles Central Library POPS, that celebrates 100 years of the Central Library.

People at LITLIT 2024 look through different small presses.

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You’ll also find LA-based Errant Press, which specializes in books that break the traditional form — like a poem printed on measuring tape or a matchbox sized poetry collection.

“It’s really cool to see the kinds of risks that people are able to take, the kinds of communities they’re able to serve and really highlight here on the West Coast,” said Irene Yoon, executive director of LARB.

Panels, printing presses, and workshops

The two-day fair also hosts various panels and workshops, including one on the art of comedic writing and another on how to tell the stories of Los Angeles through archival materials.

“This is, I think, the most panels we've ever done,” VanKoughnett said.

People sit down for a panel discussion at LITLIT 2024.

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Workshops on how to navigate the literary world with a completed manuscript and making your own comics and zines are also on the itinerary.

And Carson’s International Printing Museum will demonstrate how to screen print your own bookmark.

“It's not until we're all in the same room with all our best books literally out on the table that you get to see kind of what a phenomenal publishing culture Los Angeles truly has,” said Terri Accomazzo, editorial director of Angel City Press.

Running a small business is tough under normal circumstances. Running one in a wildfire burn scar can feel nearly impossible.

That's the reality many Altadena business owners are still navigating nearly a year and a half after the Eaton Fire destroyed the community and the local economy. Businesses are grappling with how do you stay open when so many of your customers are gone?

At Wet Paws, a pet grooming business along Lake Avenue, that question recently came to a head.

The shop reopened in January but business remained slow. Wet Paws co-owner Stephanie Trujillo estimates the fire had displaced up to 90% of their customers.

Marley, a Cane Corso from Pasadena, went for her first grooming session at Wet Paws in more than a year.

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Then came a conversation with their landlord several months ago that forced a decision.

"He reached out and said, 'Are you going to re-sign your lease?'" Trujillo recalled.

The answer wasn't obvious.

"I said, unfortunately, we're not even making it. We're paying out of our own pocket," she said. "So he said, 'I'll give you until June 1.'"

The deadline meant Trujillo and her mother, Linda Alashti, who have owned the business together since 2023, had only a few months to figure out whether Wet Paws had a future in Altadena.

Wet Paws is hardly alone. As businesses struggle, Los Angeles County recently launched a program offering free marketing assistance and storefront improvements to fire-affected businesses. The deadline to apply is June 8.

A flag banner and sandwich board on the sidewalk outside Wet Paws advertises its services.

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The county also operates a gift card program to encourage residents to spend money at fire-impacted businesses.

But relief has not arrived quickly enough for many businesses.

One particularly slow April Sunday at Wet Paws drove home how dire the situation had become, when they had only one customer.

As she drove home to Fontana, Trujillo began composing a social media post.

"So this isn't easy for us to share," the post began, "but I wanted to reach out with an open heart and hope."

In the message, Trujillo asked the community to book appointments and spread the word to help their business survive.

Before posting it, Trujillo showed it to her mother.

Wet Paws groomer Elizabeth Ranes takes care of a basset hound client.

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"We're very prideful, and it's very hard to ask people for help," she said. "I felt embarrassed that we had to ask the community for help."

Her mother's advice was simple. "Just post it," she told her. "The worst that's going to happen is nobody sees it or nobody cares."

Instead, the opposite happened. By the next day, the post had been viewed and shared hundreds of times across Instagram and Facebook.

The phone started ringing, said Wet Paws groomer Elizabeth Ranes.

"I got well over 50 calls," Ranes said. "We booked out for the last three weeks of the month when we made that post.”

Customers told Alashti that they “didn't know you were back, because they don't come this way anymore.”

Decor inside Wet Paws embraces a playful canine motif.

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Among those who returned was Penny Dahlstrom, a Pasadena resident whose 113-pound Cane Corso Marley had been a Wet Paws regular before the fire.

Dahlstrom had tried taking Marley to a large pet store chain while Wet Paws was closed.

"My husband went in to pick her up, and he hears crying, and it was her," Dahlstrom said. "That's not just her nature."

The social media appeal didn't just bring back former customers. It also introduced the business to new ones, Trujillo said.

But recovery remains uneven.

Some days are still slow. And the shop continues to deal with lingering fire-related electrical damage in the back of the building.

Wet Paws is operating on a temporary electrical system, limiting how much power it can use at any given time.

"If we run our AC, and the neighbors run their AC, we lose power," Trujillo said.

As the June 1 lease deadline approached, Trujillo and her mother weighed their options. They could walk away and cut their losses. Or they could commit to rebuilding alongside a community they had come to love.

Ultimately, they thought about the response to their post and the customers who had shown up when the business needed them most. And they had faith that Altadena would rebuild to its full strength.

They chose to renew the lease for another three years.

"I can't imagine what the community is going through, losing their homes and losing everything that they had," Trujillo said. "Yet they're still coming back."

And as long as they do, she said Wet Paws will be there for them and their fur babies.

On a recent Monday, students at Breed Street Elementary in Boyle Heights started their day like no other — with a tour of the murals hand-painted over the weekend across the playground.

It’s the latest of seven elementary schools in and around L.A. to get the treatment. Over 70 murals in the last 13 years, brought by a collective of artists to students in under-resourced neighborhoods with little access to art education.

“The kids were so excited,” said Stefanie Barbee, a math teacher at Breed. “Just pure joy.”

The students snaked through the paintings on handball courts and school walls: cartoon animals, bright orange flowers, a circle of meticulously painted lines. The works span genres and sensibilities.

Mural by artist hi-dutch.

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“It's grassroots. We're not getting money from anyone,” said Erik Caruso, the fifth-grade teacher in Paramount who's the group glue. To them, they are just an assembly of like-minded friends — and friends of friends — who spend one weekend out of the year hanging out and painting murals for school kids.

But the collective is anything but typical. It includes artists like the late Rich Jacobs, who died from leukemia this year; Tim Kerr; pro skater Ray Barbee; and Japanese artists Yusuke Hanai and hi-dutch. The vibe's always low-key, and somehow they've managed to stay under the radar.

Mural by artist Yusuke Hanai.

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Mural by artist Yusuke Hanai.

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“The kids have no idea that they show in huge galleries or have pieces hanging in museums,” said writer Martin Wong, co-founder of the pioneering Asian pop culture magazine Giant Robot. "Or they're famous in the skateboarding scene or surf or music."

Their reward is the Monday morning after, seeing the happiness on the kids’ faces.

“The artists are waiting all weekend — it’s that moment,” Caruso said.

Mural by artists Sandy Yang and James Hamblin.

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James Hamblin was at Breed for the meet-and-greet earlier this month. He painted a mural designed by his partner Sandy Yang on one of the handball walls.

“Sandy's design is pretty abstract, so it was interesting because the kids were [asking], you know, ‘ What is it?’” Hamblin said. “It was great because I could tell them I had no idea and like, ‘What do you guys think it is?’"

Bring the art museum to the school

Erik Caruso.

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The idea came to Caruso in 2011, after he took about two dozen students from his Paramount school to MOCA and discovered that only four had ever been to an art museum.

“I wonder if there's a way we can bring the art museum to the school,” he said.

Caruso, a 24-year veteran, was no stranger to bringing art — and artists — directly to his students. In 2009, he launched a monthly art project for fifth-graders that culminated in a year-end show where they met and shared work with living contemporary artists.

Caruso's 5th grade art project, featuring works by artist Tim Kerr.

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The murals were next.

They painted their first ones at his school in 2012. Soon, the project expanded to the rest of Los Angeles.

Crew at work

Mural by artist Chris Johanson.

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Mural by artist Chris Johanson.

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The painting takes place between Friday and Sunday, but planning takes months.

At Breed, the connection was made through math teacher Barbee — wife of Ray — who is on a two-year stint at the Boyle Heights school to help students catch up on the subject.

“I had sort of planted that seed that at some point I would love for a school I was working at to be the recipient of the beautiful work,” she said.

Breed Street Elementary in Boyle Heights.

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She brought Caruso out for a site visit last September.

“He has a really amazing kind of vision about where to place the artists … based on just their artwork and where it is in relation to the street view,” Barbee said.

Next came an introduction to the principal and the approval process.

“One of the biggest challenges with what we are doing is, you know, they want flipping dolphins and stuff like that,” Caruso said. “But we want to cross over into fine art pieces.”

Mural by artists Lookout & Wonderland

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Mural by artists Lookout & Wonderland

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Paying it forward

Caruso estimated that as many as 40 artists and musicians have joined the effort.

The core group now, he said, is about 11 people, and friends and families often tag along to help out, given they have just 16 hours over three days to finish the job.

Mural by artist Oitama.

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Mural by artist Lori Damiano.

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Among the regulars: Wong and his wife, Wendy Lau, who once organized DIY punk shows to fund music education at their daughter's Chinatown school. In Caruso, they saw a kindred spirit.

Caruso later brought the collective to paint at that school and eventually invited their daughter, Linda Lindas bassist Eloise Wong, to join his fifth-grade art and music project.

“All of these kids on the blacktop were all just screaming their hearts out,” Eloise said. “It's cool how Erik — Mr. Caruso to them — shows them, like, raw ways to express themselves through cool art.”

Reggae star Ziggy Marley has spent decades carrying one of music’s most celebrated legacies. But until now, he had never written a song directly about his father, Bob Marley.

That’s changed with “Many Mourn for Bob,” a track on Marley’s ninth solo album Brightside, his first release recorded in his new studio in North Hollywood.

Marley was just 12 when his father died of cancer in 1981. Now 57, Marley says the song instinctually emerged after years of life experience and producing the biopic One Love, which revisited his father’s struggles like an assassination attempt amid political violence in Jamaica.

“He went through some things that was really tough on a human being – and just understanding him in that light is to have a little bit more emotional, deeper connection to his experience,” Marley said in an interview at his studio.

Searching for the bright side

The deeply personal track is part of a splashy return for Marley, who's touring behind Brightside and will perform at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21.

The new album blends political themes, optimism and musical experimentation.

Its lead single, “Racism Is a Killa,” featuring Big Boi, pairs the heavy topic with an upbeat groove that he hopes will make the song more accessible to young people.

“We just wanna come out straightforward, like I never want to come out tiptoeing,” Marley said. “I want to say something that can catch your ears or catch your thoughts.”

That tension between darkness and hope runs throughout Brightside. Marley described the album as a reflection on enduring difficult periods – from the pandemic to the Los Angeles wildfires – without losing sight of optimism.

“Sometimes we get lost in that so much that we don't realize that there is always a bright side,” Marley said.

The 432 Hz experiment

The album also experiments sonically: Marley recorded Brightside using 432 hertz tuning instead of the standard 440 hertz in most mainstream music. Advocates of 432 hertz believe it produces a warmer, more meditative sound better synced to the natural world. (You can hear the difference for yourself here.)

“It's a lower musical frequency, but it's a higher frequency in a next sense of your spirituality and emotion,” he said. “So even though the numbers go down, the frequency actually go up.”

Marley sees the move as part of a larger search for new creative approaches.

“I'm very open-minded and always trying to evolve and just experiment with life and music,” Marley said.

The Grammy winner, who joins James Blake and Ed O’Brien of Radiohead as the most high-profile artists to record at the lower frequency, floated the idea of a larger movement among artists.

“Let's just have a revolution in the music industry,” he said. “Let's change the frequency.”

Building a dream

Marley works out of his Rebel Lion Studio in North Hollywood, its name a nod to his 2018 album Rebellion Rises while also a play on the word “rebellion.”

He described the studio as an extension of the independent spirit his father built with Tuff Gong Studio in Jamaica.

Musicians set up for rehearsal ahead of the next leg of Ziggy Marley's tour.

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“My father had a dream, and I had a dream too,” Marley said.

Like with Tuff Gong, Marley also plans to expand the studio operation to include vinyl pressing as records continue their resurgence in the streaming era.

“There’s always gonna be a vinyl present going on,” Marley said. “A thousand years from now, people that we're still gonna need vinyl records to listen to music.”

Ziggy Marley in the hallway of his new studio in North Hollywood.

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For years, Marley said, he worked out of smaller home setups and rented facilities before deciding to build a larger permanent space in L.A.

Marley said the city has become central to his own creative evolution over the last two decades of living and working here.

Drawn initially by music, friends and the city's small but tight-knit Jamaican community, he says being surrounded by creatives from different backgrounds helped push his artistry in new directions.

“I left my safety and my community, my tribe, and come out by myself to L.A.,” he said. “But it's a great experience. It really helped my growth as a human being being here.”

What’s next

Fresh off the release of Brightside, Marley says he’s already working on another album – a notably quicker turnaround since his last album, the family-music release More Family Time in 2020,

“We're doing back to back,” he said.

Ziggy Marley will be performing at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21 as part of a tour supporting his new album Brightside.

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He’s also busy writing a children’s book based on his feel-good hit anthem “True to Myself” and eyeing opportunities in front – or behind the camera – inspired by his time working on One Love and making the video for “Racism Is A Killa.”

“Same philosophy, same message, but within visuals, you know?” Marley said excitedly. “I want to create some stories and try out. I feel it coming. I can feel it.”