Ziggy Marley to open national tour at Fox Tucson Theatre

He can tick off a list of excuses why it took him so long to make "Brightside," which dropped late last month. There were tour obligations and time tied up building his Rebel Lion Studio in Los Angeles, where the Kingston, Jamaica, native has lived the past 20 years.

He also got tied up working on the 2024 bio-pic "Bob Marley: One Love" about his famous father.

But the truth of the matter is a little deeper.

"It took years to get here, where I am at, to be more honest, to be more forthright with people, and just be truthful, you know, and be true to myself," the eight-time Grammy-winning reggae singer said during an early May phone call to talk about his Fox Tucson Theatre show on Friday, June 18. "It took years of experiences, and inspecting my own self, my consciousness."

Marley said he took his time writing the songs; he wanted to make sure each was "fully thought out, fully grown, before I went in to record."  

"Brightside" finds Marley "exploring some of my more private, emotional or mental side in an artistic way." In some ways, it's been cathartic, he said. 

"I definitely feel like this album kind of connects with me a lot. I did this album for myself," he said. "These songs are songs that kind of help me picture rough times, you know, while writing them, and that's what happens behind curtains. I make music, tell myself, feel how I feel, or express what I need to express, and then I share it with the public. But these songs are for me, personally."

"Brightside," which Marley coproduced with his brother Stephen, opens with the uplifting "JAH We Give Glory" before Marley reminds listeners that "Racism Is A Killer" that can only be cured "by injecting equality." 

The album was recorded in the warmer toned 432Hz — a frequency that Marley uses live as well — which lent an overall soothing feel on the anthemic "Why Let the World" with R&B percussionist Sheila E and jazz's Trombone Shorty. Jake Shimabukuro added his signature uke to the buoyantly optimistic reggae-rich "Make It Paradise" while reggae beats are interrupted by pop-leaning rhythms in the love song "Sweet Divine." 

Horns lend an almost mariachi effect to the reggae-pop title song while the collaboration with rapper Big Boi on a second version of "Racism Is A Killer" brings a hip-hop urgency to Marley's message that "you can't rewrite history, but you can make things right."

The album's emotional gut punch comes with "Many Mourn For Bob," the first song Ziggy Marley has ever written about his late father and reggae legend Bob Marley.

The song was inspired by Ziggy Marley's time on the set of "One Love," which exposed the human side of the reggae legend. 

"I had to think about him in a different way, like emotionally, because we wanted to express the human side of him, not the legend, not the star," Marley said. "So I had to start to relate to him in some way with my life also. When I go through something life-changing, how do I feel as a human being? I had to think deeper about him than I've ever done before and that was part of the experience during the movie."

The movie forced Marley to "delve a little deeper into his emotional side," he said of his father. 

It was a side the son knew little about. Ziggy Marley, the third of his father's 11 children, was just 12 years old when his father died in 1981 at the age of 36.

"I feel a lot of empathy for him," said the 57-year-old father of five. "I feel like he went through a lot that is not on the forefront of what people think about Bob Marley. They don't think about his emotional health or his mental health; they mostly think about, 'Bob Marley was great.' He went through a lot emotionally, mentally, and I'm connecting with that and I'm connected with him, too, because I feel like a part of that song is not just me singing about him. I feel like he's singing about himself in that song; I feel like it's a part of us."

The voice of Bob Marley opens the song, in which his son expresses his own emotional mental state as he reflects with melancholy on his father through an empathetic lens, "feeling kind of sad ... (about) what he went through beyond the starlight, what he went through as a person."

"I feel like you just come to terms with that, right? Come to terms with him as an emotional and mental human being, not just my father, and not just a legend," Marley said. "I think that's what it is, and I'm mature enough to deal with it. ... It took time to get there, and I mean, I just felt like, I guess I'm more mature now, spiritually, mentally. I'm just more mature and more open now ... to share some things."

Friday's concert at Fox Tucson, 17 W. Congress St., opens Marley's 40-plus-city "Brightside Tour 2026" and is the only Arizona show. It starts at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $24-$150 through foxtucson.com.