The overdose death rate among young adults ages 18 to 24 spiked 34% in just five years between 2018 and 2022, according to data provided to NPR from the CDC.
Why now: The trend largely is driven by cheap and potent opioids like fentanyl infiltrating a variety of street drugs and fake pills resembling treatments for anxiety, or ADHD.
Why it matters: The death of one student this spring at UCLA speaks to the need for greater public health response to overdoses, including on college campuses. His mother says there was no Narcan — a common antidote for potent opioids like fentanyl — at her son's dorm.
In the summer of 2020, Monica Vera-Schubert talked to NPR about her long struggle to get insurance coverage for her son Bobby’s addiction treatment. They’d recently prevailed, he was getting sober, and Vera-Schubert, a single mom, expressed immense gratitude.
“My son is alive; I appreciate every moment I have with him,” she said.
In the years that followed, Bobby became a devoted student, got into his dream school of UCLA, and sometimes joined his pharmacist mom as an activist, giving talks and warning others of the dangers of prescription-drug abuse.
Bobby Schubert
(
Courtesy Schubert Family
)
“I always tell him, ‘Bobby, I'm so proud of you,’” Vera-Schubert said at the time. Bobby would respond, “Mom, I’m so proud of you.”
That was four years ago.
This spring, Vera-Schubert reached out again, saying Bobby had relapsed. On April 12, a roommate found him slumped over his desk in his dorm, apparently overdosed from fake Xanax pills laced with fentanyl. Bobby Schubert was 29.
Deadly trend and a need for more response
The Schuberts’ tragedy speaks to the need for greater public health response to overdoses, including on college campuses. The overdose death rate among young adults ages 18 to 24 spiked 34% in just five years between 2018 and 2022, according to data provided to NPR from the CDC. The trend largely is driven by cheap and potent opioids like fentanyl infiltrating a variety of street drugs and fake pills resembling treatments for anxiety, or ADHD.
A big reason for that lack of action is a lack of data, says Christina Freibott, a researcher at Boston University. “There's nothing that tracks, specifically, college campuses,” she says. “They are not always aware of the cause of student death. If it was an overdose or something else.” Medical privacy often shields that information, she says. And even if students are revived from an overdose, for example, they’re very unlikely to report the incident to school officials.
Overdoses are shrouded in secrecy and shame, says Monica Vera-Schubert. That devastating night, as she stood outside her son’s dorm and wailed over her son’s body, she felt shunned; no one from UCLA, the police, or medical examiner spoke to, or consoled her. “My son passed away, there in the dorms on the university, and nobody wants to say anything.”
Monica Vera-Schubert decorates Bobby's grave with flower petals. Visiting her son's grave at Forest Lawn cemetery in Los Angeles has become a daily ritual.
(
Mette Lampcov for NPR
/
visual Coverage for NPR Science
)
A few weeks later, as Vera-Schubert reconstructed a timeline of the final moments of Bobby’s life, her grief turned to torment, as she realized one thing might’ve changed everything: “The dorm that my son is at: Was there Narcan there? No.”
Narcan — a brand of the medication naloxone — can fully reverse opioid overdose if administered quickly, often as a nasal spray. California’s Campus Opioid Safety Act took effect last year, requiring most state and community colleges to provide education and free naloxone to students. UCLA officials say the school is compliant.
Monica Vera-Schubert looks at baby pictures of Bobby.
(
Mette Lampcov for NPR
/
visual Coverage for NPR Science
)
Nevertheless, in the 10 minutes it took paramedics to arrive after Bobby was found, Monica Vera-Schubert says no one near him had access to naloxone. She was later told there was none in the building.
“For 10 minutes, maybe more, my son just laid there; there was no Narcan,” Schubert says. “My son just laid there. Would he still be here? Maybe.”
Why college officials worry about making naloxone visible
Naloxone itself is inexpensive and harmless; it has no effect on anyone not overdosing. But some college administrators worry that making naloxone very visible on campus might tarnish their image: What will prospective parents think? Does it appear to condone drug use?
“Of course, you don’t think it’s a problem until you have to put a student in a body bag,” says Susan Murphy, who was in that position when she was assistant dean of the pharmacy school at the University of Charleston, West Virginia. That loss, and others, prompted her to leave academia five years ago to head the West Virginia Drug Intervention Institute, which provides overdose education and distributes kits with training videos to schools and bus systems.
She says even as the risks mount, many college administrators remain willfully blind. “That lack of reporting data allows people to continue to put blinders on,” she says.
Murphy says some colleges do understand the urgency — including all colleges in her home state of West Virginia. “We had some really brave college presidents who said, ‘I don't care what the perception is, this has to happen,’” she says.
The most proactive among schools are devising some of their own solutions. Some use their own pharmacy school students, for example, to train other students to recognize overdose and administer naloxone. Others — including Virginia Tech, University of Georgia, and colleges and universities across West Virginia — hang boxes containing free naloxone and how-to videos in place like libraries and dorms, alongside first-aid kits and fire extinguishers. Some even distribute fentanyl test strips, so students can test their drugs before using them.
That includes places like UCLA. Officials there declined an interview, but said in an emailed statement that it provides free naloxone and fentanyl test kits at more than 20 locations on campus, including at residence halls. It said it plans to expand the availability of those this month, before school resumes.
That wasn’t enough to put naloxone within arm’s reach when Bobby Schubert needed it.
His mother says she met with school officials the month after his death, telling them she found no naloxone visible anywhere on campus, including in her son’s old dorm. “My son might still be alive if there were changes made,” Vera-Schubert says she told them.
Proximity to antidote is key
Proximity to naloxone is critical, says Preston Quigley, whose high school years passed in a blur of drug use and some perilously close brushes with opioid overdose.
“It's kind of like drowning, but you don't know it,” says Quigley, of how overdose can feel. Quigley is now 26, three years sober, and a social work major at West Virginia University. He’s had friends who needed naloxone to revive them. “If Narcan wasn't available, we were shaking, slapping, doing whatever we could to keep that person awake,” he says.
Preston Quigley
(
Preston Quigley
)
Quigley, who is active in his college recovery community, says in the years since he got sober, fentanyl has made drug use only scarier: A student might take a pill from a friend, thinking it’s a late-night study aid, then wind up dead. “That for me is where the difference I think lies, and where a lot of the danger lies for the college population,” he says.
Students are motivated to help
But expecting schools themselves to accept and adopt overdose prevention takes too long, says Theo Krzywicki, a former paramedic in long-term recovery who founded a group called End Overdose. The group works directly with students, bypassing school administrations to distribute naloxone and provide training. So far, it has 28 chapters, with a backlog of students at 75 other schools looking to start new ones.
“I think that answers how big of a problem it is: The students know,” Krzywicki says of the large number of new student applicants. “That's why we focus on working with the students, because the students are more motivated to make change, typically, than the campuses.”
He says too few of the public-health efforts speak to the realities young people face; the old “Just Say No” anti-drug campaigns have no relevance, especially considering fentanyl lurks invisibly in so many places. Education, he says, is most effective when it comes from peers who understand.
“When you have one person that understands the community and culture and can provide the information at a level that people not only understand but receive— that’s the biggest part — you can really make a lot of progress,” Krzywicki says.
Trauma for the witnesses, too
Peer-to-peer training can also be a critical source of emotional support for bystanders — including students who’ve tried to revive unresponsive roommates or friends.
“People are very aware that this is a huge problem that is threatening our generation,” says Madeleine Ward, who lost a middle-school friend to overdose. She says that experience leaves terrifying scars. “I feel like I was very, very aware of the fact that fentanyl in particular is a very big issue and something that I needed to look out for, for myself and for my friends.”
Yet her freshman year at UCLA, Ward says everyone around her seemed wholly unprepared.. “When I got to college, it was very scary because I didn't feel like that many people knew what Narcan was, or that many people were scared about taking drugs that were laced with fentanyl.”
So Ward co-founded an End Overdose chapter at her school, giving out naloxone and educating peers to recognize signs of overdose. "After every single training we have, so many people have been really deeply impacted by overdose and overdose loss.” (Ward coincidentally lived on the same campus as Bobby Schubert, but did not know him and was not aware of his death.)
Ward, who graduated in May, says things are starting to change on campus. In one of her last classes, a professor asked for a show of hands of people who were carrying naloxone with them. About 50 in a lecture hall of 200 students raised their hands, Ward says, “which was huge to me because I didn't know a single person who carried Narcan freshman year.” That, she says, means everyone is safer.
People walk through a courtyard full of small publishers during LITLIT.
(
Los Angeles Review of Books
)
Topline:
The free book festival LITLIT, celebrates small independent publishers on the West Coast from Seattle to Santa Monica. It’s returning to L.A. the weekend of June 6 and 7.
Why it matters: The “Big Five” major publishers dominate publishing in the country. The literary fair highlights works from small presses on the West Coast.
The backstory: The Los Angeles Review of Books started LITLIT in 2019, to introduce LARB publishing workshop students to the industry; it has since grown into a festival celebrating independent publishers and other local literary arts practices.
Read on... for details on the event.
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.
(
Los Angeles Review of Books
)
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.
The Little Literary Fair Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) 960 E. Third St., Los Angeles Preview day: Friday, June 5, 6 p.m. Full fair: Saturday, June 6, to Sunday, June 7, from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Free admission Info and RSVP
“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.
(
Los Angeles Review of Books
)
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.
(
Los Angeles Review of Books
)
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.
(
Los Angeles Review of Books
)
Workshops on how to navigate the literary world with a completed manuscript and making your own comics and zines are also on the itinerary.
“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.
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published May 31, 2026 5:00 AM
Stephanie Trujillo and her mother Linda Alashti have co-owned Wet Paws since 2023.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
Topline:
After the Eaton Fire displaced most of its customers, Altadena pet groomer Wet Paws faced a June 1 deadline to decide whether to renew its lease. A social media plea sparked an outpouring of community support.
The backstory: Wet Paws estimates its lost up to 90% of its customer base after the fire, leaving it struggling to stay afloat.
What's next: The business has decided to renew its lease banking on Altadena's recovery and more customers returning to the area.
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.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
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.
Marketing Lab+ Los Angeles County has launched a program offering free marketing assistance and storefront improvements to eligible Altadena businesses. The deadline to apply is June 8.
"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 programoffering 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.
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.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
"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.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
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.
Keep up with LAist.
If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published May 31, 2026 5:00 AM
Mural by Geoff McFetridge.
(
Operation Creative Freedom
/
Operation Creative Freedom
)
Topline:
A collective of artists has painted more than 70 murals across seven elementary schools in and around Los Angeles to bring art to students in under-resourced communities.
Why now: The collective just wrapped up their latest murals at Breed Street Elementary in Boyle Heights.
The backstory: The idea to paint murals at schools came from Erik Caruso, a fifth-grade teacher in Paramount, after he found out that many of his students had never been to an art museum.
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.
(
Operation Creative Freedom
/
Operation Creative Freedom
)
“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.
(
Operation Creative Freedom
/
Operation Creative Freedom
)
Mural by artist Yusuke Hanai.
(
Sandy Yang / James Hamblin
)
“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.
(
Operation Creative Freedom
/
Operation Creative Freedom
)
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.
(
Operation Creative Freedom
/
Operation Creative Freedom
)
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.
(
Operation Creative Freedom
/
Operation Creative Freedom
)
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.
(
Operation Creative Freedom
/
Operation Creative Freedom
)
Mural by artist Chris Johanson.
(
Operation Creative Freedom
/
Operation Creative Freedom
)
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.
(
Sandy Yang / James Hamblin
)
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
(
Operation Creative Freedom
/
Operation Creative Freedom
)
Mural by artists Lookout & Wonderland
(
Operation Creative Freedom
/
Operation Creative Freedom
)
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.
(
Sandy Yang / James Hamblin
)
Mural by artist Lori Damiano.
(
Operation Creative Freedom
/
Operation Creative Freedom
)
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.”
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published May 30, 2026 5:00 AM
Ziggy Marley breaks emotional and creative ground in his new album Brightside
(
Leon Bennett
/
Getty Images
)
Topline:
Ziggy Marley is back with a new solo album that includes the first song he's written about his father, Bob Marley. Brightside also marks Marley's experimentation with recording at a different frequency.
What's the frequency: Marley said he recorded Brightside at 432 hertz — a departure from mainstream music recorded at 440 hertz — to change the emotional listening experience.
His own space: Marley recorded at Rebel Lion Studio, his newly-built facility in North Hollywood. After more than two decades in L.A., Marley said the city's concentration of creatives has played a major role in his own growth as an artist.
What's next: Marley says he's already working on his next album, a children's book and a return to film production of some kind, saying he wants to explore his creativity next in a visual medium.
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.
Reggae Night XXIV featuring Ziggy Marley and Burning Spear, with a DJ set by Zuri Marley
When: Sunday, June 21, 7 p.m.
Where: Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles
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 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.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
“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.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
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.
(
Astrida Valigorsky
/
Getty Images
)
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.”
