A force on the global pop scene, the bilingual phenom Becky G. nevertheless keeps true to her roots in L.A.'s Inglewood neighborhood. Join her on a guided tour of the city through her eyes.
Less"Join me on my trip around my favorite places in Los Angeles. Where do we start? In my hometown of Inglewood. I loved going to school at Oak Street Elementary and knowing that after school, I was going to make a pit stop at the Kelso Market on the way back to Grandma's house. She would pick me up, and I would have my two dollars: one dollar for my bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, and the other dollar for paleta de sandia. I love Kelso market so much—so many memories there."
"The next place close to home is Randy's Donuts. You gotta go and get the chocolate bars—those are my personal favorites. I throw them in the microwave, for just like 10 seconds. It's just perfect, warm. Whenever I drive by on the 405, I get off on Manchester to go to Randy's Donuts. I've been having it since I was a little girl. My earliest, earliest memories I have of eating Randy's Donuts are maybe three years old—very young!"
"Mariscos Guillen in Hawthorne, by my other grandma's house, is a restaurant that I've grown up going to my whole life. Now I go and I get a beer with my caldo de camarón, with extra limón, and I put a lot of hot sauce in it! If you're feeling a little out there, you want something a little spicier, you can get their aguachiles and ask for it to be extra spicy, and they will definitely serve it to you extra spicy! Also: the first place I ever tried octopus at! And I still love it."
"I grew up at a time when The Forum was blue still, and then it got reconstructed, and now it's red. It's not an overwhelming size—as an artist, if you play The Forum, it's the perfect size, because it still feels intimate. My grandfather is also buried right across the street at the Inglewood Cemetery, as of recently, and I have this little joke with him, whenever I pray, that he's going to have a front-row seat to the first show that I headline at The Forum, and that makes me really proud."
"The Manhattan Beach pier is one of the beaches that I grew up going to because it's so close. There's a lot of great food. There's a sushi spot there where Sebastian, my boyfriend, and I had our first date, called IZAKA-YA. If the wait's a little too long, you go, you just take a walk down the pier, watch the sunset, wait for them to call your name, and you go have some great sushi! The view's incredible. I've caught many beautiful sunsets there—still hands-down my favorite sunset."
"Downtown Los Angeles is very iconic, and Placita Olvera is very special to me. When I was very young, one of the first short films I ever shot was in Placita Olvera, and it was called La estación de Olvera Street. It was so mesmerizing to me how much it reminded me of the pueblito that I would visit in Mexico with my family. There are a lot of cute little shops, and the oldest house in Los Angeles is there—the adobe house. Placita Olvera keeps that true Mexican essence."
"I love buying jewelry at the Santee Alleys, because I lose my jewelry all the time, so I get those knock-off really cheap hoop earrings there. But I especially love the food! If you've never had L.A. frutas, it's bomb. You can get whatever fruits you want, throw some lime on top, some salt, put some tajin on there, and if you're an O.G., you know that there's a pico de gallo powder that's a little spicier that you can throw on top—I'm with that."
"You definitely gotta go catch a Dodger game! Go to Dodger Stadium, one of the most iconic stadiums ever, in my opinion. I don't just say it because I'm an L.A. girl. I love the Dodger Stadium so much. The sunsets there are also really beautiful. The food is great. And I've gotten to sing at Dodger Stadium before! It was just one of the coolest experiences I've ever had."
"Now, this is probably the one thing on my list in L.A. that sounds a little bougie, but let me tell you, there is this little hidden diner downstairs at the Beverly Hills Hotel that has the best breakfast waffles. When I tell you I am a waffle fanatic, I love me a good waffle, their waffles are so good and so yummy. They also have a really good iced tea. This is the type of stuff princesses drink, on the high key, for sure."
"As a little girl growing up in California, I was so spoiled living so close to Disneyland. But being one of six in my family, knowing that it was quite the penny to save up to go, we would go once a year, and it would always be around my birthday. Spending the day at Disneyland was by far my favorite memory as a little girl. I would have butterflies the night before going, having the hardest time sleeping, be in my outfit ready to go. Disneyland is definitely where my inner child thrives."