Damian 'Jr. Gong' Marley ADD

Stephen Marley's Kaya Fest 2018 - New Venue in San Bernardino, CA

01/18/2018

“Wake up and turn me loose,” Bob Marley sang on the title track of his classic album Kaya, released exactly 40 years ago this spring. “Got to have Kaya now!” 

In celebration of this momentous anniversary, Stephen Marley’s Fruit of Life Productions will present the second annual Kaya Fest on April 28 and 29 at the NOS Events Center, located at 689 S E Street in San Bernardino, California 92408. To provide a better overall experience for the fans, the festival has been relocated from another venue in Long Beach, CA. 

The historic venue will provide a perfect setting for the Music and Awareness festival, whose stated goal is to educate, inspire and encourage positive public awareness of the vast medical and industrial potential of cannabis, which became legal in California as of January 1, 2018—and in numerous other states across the United States and the world at large.

“Kaya Fest is not a smoke-out thing,” says festival founder Stephen Marley. “What we really try to emphasize is education before recreation—to get one to learn about the medical uses, the industrial uses, the environmental benefits, the healing potential of the plant. And to ask why really is there such a fight against this plant? All these years doctors have not been allowed to research it. Most of them haven’t really studied it at all. It’s like a conspiracy. Why they don’t want us to reap the benefits of this plant? They try to use the whole stigma of the smoking and the getting high to put a cloud over it.”

The first Kaya Fest was held last year in downtown Miami on April 21st and 22nd, 2017. After a day-long educational seminar bringing together renowned cannabis experts and entrepreneurs, Stephen Marley and his brothers Ziggy, Damian, Julian, and Ky-Mani took the stage at Miami’s Bayfront Park along with Ms. Lauryn Hill, Sean Paul, Pitbull, Wyclef Jean, and many more for an epic concert that was named one of the Top 10 Music Moments of 2017 by the Miami New Times. 

This year all five Marley Brothers will return for a second historic performance, along with their father’s contemporary, reggae legend Toots & The Maytals. They will be joined by Marcia Griffiths of the I-Threes, foundation reggae band Inner Circle—who celebrate their 50th year in the reggae industry this year—as well as the original Reggae Ambassadors Third World, Indubious and Roots Of Creation. 

The Kaya Fest Lineup will also showcase the next generation of Marley music makers: Bob’s talented grandchildren Skip Marley, Jo Mersa Marley, Daniel “Bambaataa” Marley, and Shacia Payne Marley.

More artists are still to be added to the star-studded lineup, and will be announced as the bookings are confirmed.

Kaya Fest 2018 tickets are available starting today,Thursday January 18!