California Roots Music & Arts Festival (May 27-29; Monterey, Calif.)
Photo: Josue Rivas
Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of the summer in the States and naturally there’s some great ways to ring it in with reggae. Now in its seventh year, the California Roots Music & Art Festival brings some 40,000 people to the Monterey Fairgrounds, on California’s central coast, over the three-day weekend. Cali Roots is known for bringing out the biggest names in U.S.-based reggae and this year they’ve booked a heavyweight Jamaican lineup, too, including Damian “Jr Gong” Marley, Stephen Marley, Tarrus Riley, Protoje, Barrington Levy and Raging Fyah. Other headliners include Slightly Stoopid, Rebelution, J. Boog and The Green. Cali Roots also has its own beer and its own mobile app, and is one of the most environmentally proactive fests of its size, a “zero waste” event where everything is recyclable and compostable.