The sandalwood is burning. Stevie Wonder’s “Innervisions”is humming. Vintage vinyl is neatly stacked under the gaze of a Grace Jones print. And the professor is very much in. UC San Diego has been operating at a different frequency since the iconic DJ, composer, and producer King James Britt arrived on campus two-plus years ago.
Britt’s lecture course, Blacktronika: Afrofuturism In Electronic Music, has lured an elite roster of speakers to his online class such as—Questlove, Honey Dijon—while birthing a club night as part of his curriculum. “Unless you go to a club and feel how the music affects your body, you haven’t experienced it,” he says.
Over his 30-year career, the Philly native has created soundtracks with Hollywood legends Michael Mann and Ridley Scott, and spun with 90s hip-hop darlings, Digable Planets.
Most recently, he curated Carnegie Hall’s Afrofuturism Festival, which doubled as research for UCSD’s forthcoming Blacktronika Festival to be held Oct. 29 at the new state-of-the-art amphitheater. During Covid, inside Warren Lecture Hall, Britt shaped a sanctuary and a satellite classroom for the global community to explore the lineage of Black electronic artists who have been integral but overlooked in the development of house, techno, and experimental music.
“Being in here got me through—it was a time to hone in on my identity,” says Britt. “The beauty of being a professor is re-learning everything I know and articulating it in a way that my students can grasp. I found my equilibrium on campus.”
San Diego is full of people who deserve a few thousand words on what they make, who they bring together, and how their work changes the city around them. The artists, makers, advocates, and behind-the-scenes talent below are a small part of that larger ecosystem.
To help us narrow our list, we looked for names that kept coming up, work that reflects the diversity of our region, and people building something bigger than themselves.
Jackie is a long-time freelance journalist covering cannabis, food/restaurants, travel, labor, wine, spirits, arts & culture, design, and other topics. Her work has been selected twice for Best American Travel Writing, and she has won a variety of national and local awards for her writing and reporting.
Isabella Dallas is a freelance writer for San Diego Magazine and the Arts and Culture Editor at The Daily Aztec in her final year at San Diego State University. She previously worked as an editorial intern for SDM, but when she’s not writing, you can find her trying the best coffee spots in SD, devouring the latest rom-coms, and indulging in anything and everything pop culture.
Matt Eisenberg is an award-winning writer and photographer based in San Diego. A former ESPN editor, his work has also been published by CNN, Bleacher Report and the New York Daily News.
Aaryn Belfer is a writer and editor specializing in nonfiction across art, architecture, and culture. Once upon a time, she wrote a provocative column for San Diego CityBeat (RIP). She was a runner up in the 2025 Matchbook Stories contest at the San Diego Central Library and is irrationally happy about it. Currently in her Soft Girl Era, Aaryn has expensive taste in (mostly flat) shoes and will choose a great art exhibit or live jazz concert over almost anything else. Except, possibly, Javier Bardem.
Lili Kim is a content coordinator and writer for San Diego Magazine, with experience highlighting local businesses and communities. When not writing or shooting film, she is likely brewing her seventh cup of tea of the day or strolling along Sunset Cliffs.
Emma Veidt is an editor at San Diego Magazine. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the Missouri School of Journalism. She loves running, hiking, and rock climbing, but really, she mostly loves encounters with the street cats around North Park.
Gail Czyszczon is owner/copywriter at Z3 Writing and best-selling author of a children’s book series. As a strategic communications professional and editorialist, she's passionate about discovering untold stories and themes that ignite fresh conversation and true change in communities.
How Scrojo Became One of Rock’s Most Prolific Poster Artists
The San Diego designer has created more than 3,000 concert posters over nearly 40 years for artists including the Rolling Stones and the Red Hot Chili Peppers
When he was in high school, he and his friends were trying to come up with the perfect name for their punk band that would encapsulate all their personas. Nicaragua. The Freds.
One of his friends said he was going to go by Jimmy Stacks and called it “the perfect rock and roll name.” Their names changed so much that Haskett erupted: “Fine, I’m f—ing Scrotum Joe, the true defender of the Open West.”
Their response: Wow, that’s a great name.
As a teenager, he drew chalkboards for Del Mar’s Pannikin coffee shop and would design T-shirts for surf/skate brand Life’s a Beach. He signed the shirts with his moniker, but even in punk rebellion, who wants a shirt with the words Scrotum Joe on it? “They just cut out the ‘t-u-m,’ and the next thing you know, a client referred to me as that, and it stuck,” he says.
Courtesy of Scrojo
Scrojo could have been part of a band as iconic as The Misfits—had he been able to learn the famously cumbersome bassline to The Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie.” Becoming one of the most renowned concert poster designers—someone who quite literally designed the cover of Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion—is a pretty good Plan B.
“To my knowledge, he’s done more rock posters than anybody else alive,” says Dennis King, whose D. King Gallery in Berkeley, California, serves as one of the largest private rock poster collections in the world. “He’s the hardest-working guy in the poster business.”
King not only co-authored the sequel to music historian Paul Grushkin’s The Art of Rock, but he also handles distribution and sales for all of Scrojo’s work. That’s more than 3,000 different posters over nearly 40 years. (That’s over one poster each week. For four decades straight.)
For anything from boxing matches to rodeos, posters have long been used as promotional items. Toulouse-Lautrec’s famous lithographs advertised Moulin Rouge in the late 1800s. Around the same time, Hatch Show Print in Nashville was making handbills for the Grand Ole Opry.
“I propose this: Cave paintings are the first poster art,” Scrojo says.
Courtesy of Scrojo
Rock and roll posters took off in the 1960s, when the hippie counterculture era replaced conformity and suburbia. Artists like Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead used their vibrant, psychedelic prints as a form of rebellion from the mainstream. Posters were promotional, commemorative, collectible, and especially expressive.
If the name Scrojo is any indication, he doesn’t shy away from imagery that toes the line of being too provocative. He focused more on what inspired him instead of trying to be offensive for the sake of getting attention.
“Didn’t want to show it to my grandmother, but my parents were fine with it,” Scrojo says with a laugh.
“We’ve had to ask him to put a Band-Aid over a nipple every now and then,” says Chris Goldsmith, president of Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, where Scrojo started out and hundreds of his posters currently line the walls.
Scrojo spent six weeks at Otis College of Art and Design for a summer semester before drugs, alcohol, and a self-described lack of discipline prevented him from enrolling full time. Still, he taught himself concepts like text hierarchy and later found his niche at the Belly Up and in the surfing and skating world, working with brands like Quiksilver, Rip Curl, Scorpion Bay, and DGK.
His first concert poster was for North County band Borracho y Loco, of which Goldsmith was bass guitarist. Scrojo drew an abstract version of the Belly Up’s iconic shark with colorful calypso and tiki themes.
Early on, he would craft using a pencil, pen, non-reproduction blue pencil, X-Acto knife, rubber knife, and proportion scale to create each poster, and the finished product could take a week or even longer.
Courtesy of Scrojo
“I recommend every artist coming up to do that for like six weeks,” Scrojo says. “It forces you to think about every design decision as you’re going along.”
He has since mastered vector imagery through Adobe Illustrator to the point where, depending on the level of detail needed, he could finish two projects in a day. Still, he fills sketchbook after sketchbook to blueprint.
“I liked his line in particular, and he knows how to draw, which a lot of people don’t really know how to do these days,” King says.
Scrojo would research what each musician’s merchandise looks like to get a feel for each artist’s tone and voice. Once he has his central image in mind, he focuses on what and where to place the text.
He doesn’t have one specific style, ranging his talents from art deco to psychedelic and everything in between (and outside the lines). Want a pop surrealist comic book cartoon devil with splattered paint textures, halftone dot patterns, and pure chaos? Red Hot Chili Peppers, February 1986. Want a minimalist graphic portrait with bold strokes and graffiti text? P!nk, October 2023. Want a carnival sideshow style piece with a tasteful caricature of Jeff Bridges? The Big Lebowski, August 2011.
Scrojo calls himself a jack of all trades because he can create posters for all music genres. King calls him a chameleon for his ability to adapt his voice to new eras.
Courtesy of Scrojo
“The variety of his skillset makes it possible for us to put 50 of his posters on a wall next to each other and have it look compelling, not just a bunch of the same thing over and over,” Goldsmith says.
Some of Scrojo’s favorite posters are when he feels a personal connection to the artist or the album. He has a vivid memory as a child of being trapped in a closet filled with marijuana leaves while playing hide and seek and staring at Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come” LP. “For whatever reason, as a kid, that sparked a desire to do graphic design,” Scrojo says.
Fast forward to February 2012, Cliff is performing at Belly Up. Scrojo decided to modify Cliff’s original album cover from rainbow gradient fills to classic reggae psychedelia while preserving Cliff’s striped pants and bold hat. Cliff’s manager called him and said they wanted to use it for the rest of their tour.
“We always get artists requesting that he does their posters,” Goldsmith says. “A lot of artists don’t want venues to go all rogue because they want to control how they’re being presented. With him, they’re like, ‘Let him go nuts.’”
Matt Eisenberg is an award-winning writer and photographer based in San Diego. A former ESPN editor, his work has also been published by CNN, Bleacher Report and the New York Daily News.
“Music, art, and dance are the weapon of the future,” says DJ and cultural leader Makeda “Dread” Cheatom. She would know, having witnessed their power firsthand as a collaborator of some of the most legendary stars in reggae music—and as the founder of San Diego’s Bob Marley Day and the World Beat Cultural Center in Balboa Park.
“I grew up in Linda Vista, and it was where all the people from the South and the Midwest came, ’cause they were working at the defense plants,” she recalls. “I got into reggae music, and I met Bob Marley. Later on, I produced [a show with] him. They weren’t playing his music on the radio, and I would go to the radio stations, and I would say, ‘Hey, you know, reggae music, Bob Marley.’ [They’d say,] ‘I’m sorry, we don’t know him.’
“So, I went back to school for telecommunications at City College. I got on 91X—I had a show with Demaja Lee, and we started producing reggae music, and we brought it to the clubs. Women didn’t DJ back in the day like that, but there I was. I produced Peter Tosh’s last show in California, here in San Diego—The Mama Africa Tour.
“I realized when I was very young that I was from Africa, and I wanted to learn everything about my African heritage. We didn’t have any Black or African cultural centers in San Diego. [In the late 1980s], there was a hearing [to pitch use ideas for] the House of Charm, which is now the Mingei Museum. My mother died that day, and everyone told me not to go to the meeting. But I remember my mother scrubbed all those floors—you know, she was a maid. I knew I had to win this building for my mother, my father, and all the African descendants in San Diego.
“They were arguing over this house, and I stood up there, and I knew I wasn’t gonna get that building. So, I said, ‘I just want that dilapidated old water tower [in the park],’ and everybody laughed. But I kept going to city council, and I finally got the building. It had all kinds of junk in there, asbestos. They just left me a construction dumpster, and we got the place cleaned, and we had a cultural center. All cultures are here, from Brazilian to African to Mexican, Cuban, and Japanese. That’s what World Beat is about—all of us in oneness. It’s about humanity.”
Amelia Rodriguez is a writer and journalist and winner of the San Diego Press Club's 2023 Rising Star Award and 2024 Best of Show Award, she’s also covered music, food, arts and culture, fashion, and design for Rolling Stone, Palm Springs Life, and other national and regional publications. After work, you can find her hunting down San Diego’s best pastries and maintaining her five-year Duolingo streak.
The Best Gym in San Diego Isn’t Really a Gym Anymore
Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped "athletic" from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
There’s a version of San Diego that lives in two extremes. On one side, the 5 a.m. crowd: biohackers, marathoners, people who’ve already logged a cold plunge before your alarm goes off. On the other, the after-dark crowd, the ones chasing sunset happy hours and late dinners with friends. Everyone seems to be either optimizing or unwinding, and most of us feel like we’re failing at both.
Fit, San Diego’s reigning Best Gym for the third year running, has built its entire identity around erasing that divide.
Walk into one of Fit’s three San Diego locations on a Tuesday afternoon and the lines blur fast. Someone’s mid-set on the squat rack. Someone else has a laptop open at a café table a few feet away, half-working, half-people-watching. A group is trading plans for the weekend’s event by the recovery lounge. Nobody’s in a rush to leave.
“We’re not competing for the same people,” says Emily Waybright, Public Relations Manager at Fit, addressing the arrival of a national luxury gym chain in San Diego this year. “We don’t really feel like we’re in the gym category. It’s this unique thing.”
That unique thing has a name now. Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped “athletic” from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
It’s a small wording change with a bigger idea behind it. Fit was never built around escaping the workday. It was built around the people who genuinely like what they do, and who want workouts, work, and friendships to happen in the same place instead of three separate ones. Because sometimes red light therapy with a stranger turns into weekend plans.
Fit’s philosophy traces back to its founder, who started the brand nearly two decades ago after failing to find a gym he actually wanted to belong to. He looked instead to the old-school country club, where people came for a shared interest and stayed for the community. His version was made for a younger generation, minus the golf, plus the loud music.
Which makes it a little ironic that the very award putting Fit back in the spotlight this year is Best Gym.
What does the best traditional gym look like when the definition of a gym is becoming less traditional? It’s a fair question, and Fit’s answer is that the fitness industry itself is shifting. The 45-minutes-in, 45-minutes-out model is giving way to something closer to a genuine third space, the kind of role the office and the bar used to play before remote work and changing nightlife habits rearranged how people spend their time
For Fit, community isn’t a marketing add-on to fitness. It’s the through-line. Members aren’t just paying for a treadmill; they’re paying for an entire day of social wellness that’s built on performance, recovery, connection, and a plan for the next event on the calendar. That’s a much harder membership to walk away from.
Ambition and ease aren’t opposites here, they exist side by side, where passion and play share the same morning. On September 12, Fit is hosting Sol, a full day wellness festival at Fit Social. The morning focuses on wellness classes and vendors and then the evening is a full party with multiple DJ sets and an open bar. Think of it as a kick-off to locals’ summer in San Diego.
Ready to see what a social wellness club actually looks like? Visit fitclubs.com, or follow along at @thefitclubs on Instagram.
Christopher Ashley is a failed child actor, a former computer programmer, and a Yale alum. He’s also San Diego’s Hal Prince. In 18 years as one of the most acclaimed artistic directors in the history of La Jolla Playhouse, he produced 20 world premieres that went on to Broadway, including Jesus Christ Superstar, The Outsiders, and the Idina Menzel–led Redwood. Now, he’s saying goodbye. It’s a formidable loss for the city’s underrated theater scene.
Following a lifetime of acting (poorly, he claims) in summer theater programs, Ashley switched to directing in high school. A successful New York theater career (the programming stint was just to pay off those Yale loans) eventually brought him to LJP in 2007. His tenure transformed the institution into a nationally acclaimed proving ground for fresh, fearless works.
Courtesy of La Jolla Playhouse Escape to Margaritaville (2017)
“In the earlier incarnations of the playhouse, there was much more of a mix of revivals and new work. I have really leaned us into new work. We’ve done [57] world premieres in my time here,” he says. “Everybody at the playhouse really takes seriously the idea of the new and the next. Being a doula to new projects is really satisfying—I get to run a theater during a golden age of American writing for the theater.”
Courtesy of La Jolla Playhouse The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical (2023)
Central to that mission is the 12-year-old Without Walls (WOW) Festival, an annual spring showcase of site-specific and immersive performances. “We were on the leading edge of a kind of work that is starting to really take hold in America,” Ashley adds. “These shows really challenge the relationship between audience and artist. People go because they know it’s going to happen only tonight and never again. Theater offers community—[an opportunity] to come together to experience a story—and that feels more powerful in this moment than it ever has before.”
Courtesy of La Jolla Playhouse Memphis (2008)
The sentiment is especially poignant in light of Ashley’s imminent return to New York as artistic director of Roundabout Theatre Company. But he’ll never forget his time here. “It’s the main chapter in my life,” he says. “I don’t know that San Diego gets quite the credit it deserves for what a great city for the arts it is.” Thanks to Ashley, though, it’s begun to receive its fair share of star billing.
Amelia Rodriguez is a writer and journalist and winner of the San Diego Press Club's 2023 Rising Star Award and 2024 Best of Show Award, she’s also covered music, food, arts and culture, fashion, and design for Rolling Stone, Palm Springs Life, and other national and regional publications. After work, you can find her hunting down San Diego’s best pastries and maintaining her five-year Duolingo streak.
December is somehow already here, and San Diego is closing out the year with one last festive hurrah. As 2026 peeks around the corner, the city is glowing with holiday theater productions, twinkling light displays, cheerful concerts, and end-of-year celebrations. From Santa Runs and over-the-top boat light shows to local makers markets and family-friendly festivals, there’s no shortage of fun things to do in San Diego this month. Whether you’re chasing holiday cheer, planning weekends with visiting family, or looking for the best festive events in San Diego this December, you’ll have no problem filling your calendar before the ball drops.
Courtesy of Fever Candlelight: Christmas Carols on Strings
Concerts & Festivals in San Diego This Month
Mariachi Sol de México at Balboa Theatre
December 4
Latin Grammy nominee José Hernández leads Mariachi Sol de México for a festive, family-friendly fiesta featuring classic mariachi tunes and beloved holiday hits at the Balboa Theatre in downtown.
In the San Diego Bay Parade of Lights, the floats literally float—80 boats will traverse the bay, decked out in dazzling lights and Christmas décor, for the viewing pleasure of more than 100,000 attendees.
Candlelight: Christmas Carols on Strings at Star Theatre
December 19
Score serious romantic brownie points by treating your sweetheart to a Christmas concert by candlelight. A string quartet at the Star Theatre in Oceanside will serenade audiences with instrumental versions of “O Holy Night,” “Joy to the World,” and other favorites.
Noel Noel at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park
December 19–21
The San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Master Chorale, and Children’s Choir will all take the stage at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park for Noel Noel, three nights of Christmas tunes and cheerful sing-alongs.
Photo Credit: Johann Milio
Theater & Art Exhibits in San Diego This Month
Balboa Park December Nights
December 5–6
Enjoy free access to the Mingei International Museum and the Japanese Friendship Garden, paint mini figures at the Comic-Con Museum, pick up handmade ceramic gifts at the Institute of Contemporary Art, and meet Santa Claus at the Automotive Museum as part of Balboa Park December Nights.
Spend an evening in a magical world of sugar plum fairies, leaping nutcrackers, and villainous mice with the Golden State Ballet’s breathtaking performance of The Nutcracker at the San Diego Civic Theatre.
Photo Credit: 3Pix Studios
More Fun Things to Do in San Diego This Month
Nitro Circus at Pechanga Arena
December 6
Action movies not quite high-stakes enough for you? Head to Pechanga Arena for Nitro Circus, a heart-pumping display of gravity-defying tricks from fearless motocross, skateboard, and scooter athletes.
Think of the Del Mar Fairgrounds’ Coastal Christmas as winter’s answer to the county fair—the family event features a sparkling holiday light trail, an ice-skating rink, a wine walk, a kids’ zone, and more.
San Diego Santa Run
December 13
If St. Nick needed a few doppelgängers to help him hit every house on Christmas Eve, he’d simply need to head to Pacific Beach, where more than 40,000 participants will don his iconic suit for the San Diego Santa Run, the city’s silliest 5K.
Gaslamp Pet Parade
December 13
Get your furry family members outfitted in ugly sweaters or elfin attire and join the annual Gaslamp Pet Parade. Afterward, animals and their owners can head to the Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter for free photo ops, fun games, and a costume contest awards ceremony.
Growing up, Laika Nur, MD, Scripps Clinic sports medicine specialist, loved watching beach volleyball when the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour came to her hometown of Chicago. A talented volleyball player herself, she remembers sitting in the stands all day, and once, even got a couple autographs. Years later, Dr. Nur was attending a professional event focused on women’s sports, and the discussion turned to a new professional women’s volleyball league. The general manager and coaching staff for San Diego’s team, the Mojo, happened to be in attendance, and Dr. Nur took the opportunity to ask them if they needed a team doctor. Flash forward to the Mojo’s inaugural 2024 season, when Dr. Nur officially became the team physician. Click here to read more about Dr. Nur and how she incorporates lessons she learned on the court into her practice.
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