Blvk H3ro Covers Bunny Wailer's "Fig Tree" for VP Records — Out Today
Blvk H3ro's cover of Bunny Wailer's "Fig Tree" is out today, October 30, through VP Records, recorded in Trench Town. The singer, who toured with Bunny Wailer before his passing, called it "a full-circle moment" and recorded with veteran players including Earl "Chinna" Smith. The release powers the "Rastaman 50" album, due November 6, marking 50 years since the three landmark 1976 Wailers solo albums. VP Records' push makes it the week's heritage story.
(ReggaeVibeMedia.com) — Blvk H3ro's version of Bunny Wailer's "Fig Tree" is out today, Friday, October 30, through VP Records, and it arrives with a story behind it that most covers never get. The Jamaican singer recorded the track in Trench Town, the Kingston community where The Wailers' story began, and he called the release "a full-circle moment" — because he toured with Bunny Wailer and watched him up close before his passing.
"I learned so much just by watching him, so it's an honor to stand on the foundations of such a legend," Blvk H3ro wrote when he announced the release. That is not a tribute from a distance. That is a student returning to the source.
Bunny Wailer was one of the three original Wailers alongside Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, and the last of that trio still living when he died in 2021 — which gives any reworking of his catalogue a particular weight in reggae circles. Blvk H3ro did not take that lightly. He tagged players Cannon Fraser, Dave "Primetime" Green and Megah Bass on the track, and he named Earl "Chinna" Smith, whose guitar runs through decades of roots reggae. He also gave a "big up to Maxine for carrying on the legacy/works fawud thru the @thewailerstrio," and tagged the Bunny Wailer archives account — a sign the project carries the blessing of the people stewarding Bunny's work.
VP Records handling the release puts "Fig Tree" in the hands of one of reggae's most established labels, a natural home for a record trying to bridge the old guard and the current generation. And this is only the opening chapter: the track powers the "Rastaman 50" album, due November 6, marking 50 years since Bunny Wailer's "Blackheart Man," Peter Tosh's "Legalize It" and Bob Marley's "Rastaman Vibration" all landed in 1976. Today, a younger voice steps onto a foundation laid in Trench Town — and the listening starts now.