‘Reincarnated Souls: 50th Anniversary of the Ska, Rocksteady, and Reggae Music’

Bunny Wailer AKA ‘Cyber Ras’ has released a 3-CD box set of 50 tracks titled ‘Reincarnated Souls: 50th Anniversary of the Ska, Rocksteady, and Reggae Music’

“No one has ever done this. These are 50 tracks that have never been heard before…It’s very symbolic and significant to our existence…musically. I’m just focusing on making what is good for music for people to ‘full-joy’.”

Wailer, who is 66 on April 10, said the album commemorates Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of Independence and is produced by his Solomonic Productions.

The collectors box set is composed of 3 CDs featuring 50 album tracks some which may sound familiar, some not. A handful of tracks appeared on Bunny’s Communication LP, albeit with slightly different mixes and titles. Several others were recorded for 2009’s Combination, Cross Culture, and Unite projects (Unite was never released as a studio album).

Of the Unite project, Wailer explained to the Jamaica Observer in 2009 “that album is a very serious political statement. Unity is the only area of recovery from what we are experiencing presently in Jamaica, violence and crime and gun crime and people killing each other for no reason. And then the people who are the ones who planted the seed seem to be disassociating themselves from the ugly fruit that is bearing, which is very very unfair.”

While Bunny explores the genres of hip-hop and R&B on the set, it is the songs recorded during the Unite sessions that showcase the Bunny Wailer we all know and love.

Of the opening track “National Errors” Bunny has stated “We have national heroes but you have errors, who are the so-called politicians who are errors in our lives. So I made a song about the ‘National Errors of Jamaica’. Them not dealing with Nanny, them not dealing with Bogle, them not dealing with Marcus, them not dealing with Sam Sharpe, them not dealing with William Gordon, them not dealing with Norman Manley and them not dealing with Bustamante, make them national errors of Jamaica.”

The 2 DVDs included with the box set off two separate but very interesting and intruiguing conversations with the Blackheart Man. DVD1 features a conversation with Bunny Wailer and the late Lloyd Brevett about the Wailers, Skatalites, and Trench Town. DVD2 features a phenomenal moment from Rototom where Bunny faces off with Chris Blackwell about his alleged unfair treatment Of The Wailers & Bunny Wailer.

Here is a clip of that astounding, yet cringe-worthy conversation.