Capleton has not played a full show like this in a while, and he wants you to know he is not coming to coast. “When the Fireman touches that stage, it’s going to be a frenzy situation,” he said ahead of Sunday’s Culture Rising event at Plantation Cove, St. Ann. “Fire caan cool! Heights of Fire!”
The show lands at a genuinely interesting moment for the artist, who just released Heights Of Fire on June 26 through Evidence Music.
It is his first full-length album in 16 years, a 16-track project featuring Damian Marley, Stephen Marley and Eesah, and it picks up exactly where his catalog left off, spirituality, resistance, justice and righteousness running through the whole thing.
Culture Rising is not just a Capleton show, though. Dean Fraser is on the bill, and that name carries serious weight in Jamaican music circles.
The saxophonist has played on thousands of recordings across decades, including Black Uhuru’s Anthem, Peter Tosh’s No Nuclear War, Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Sean Paul’s Dutty Rock and Damian Marley’s Welcome to Jamrock.
Nesbeth rounds out the lineup, representing a younger wave of conscious Jamaican music. He comes to the stage with Capleton’s direct endorsement, which says something about how the event is being framed, less like a nostalgia package and more like a passing of something forward.
The event is the closing staging of the ENCORE LIVE SERIES, a platform built around live Jamaican music, sound system culture and what the organizers describe as destination entertainment.
The whole concept was put together to give Jamaica’s north coast more consistent access to leading Jamaican performers, which has historically been harder to pull off outside of Kingston.
Culture Rising also closes out Midas Entertainment’s full summer finale weekend at Plantation Cove. The night before, on Saturday August 29, Sophisticated: The Summer End Beach Party runs with Vanessa Bling, Trippple X, Bishop Escobar and Illusion Sound on the lineup.
Capleton’s own framing of the night is worth sitting with. “Bring the family, bring your friends and bring the energy. Come ready for the message, the music, the vibration and the fire,” he said.
That is a specific kind of invitation, one that is not just about entertainment but about what he sees as a cultural responsibility attached to the moment.
With Heights Of Fire still fresh and a live show built around three artists who each represent a different era of reggae’s timeline, Sunday’s lineup at Plantation Cove is shaping up to be one of the more layered events on Jamaica’s north coast this summer.
ENCORE LIVE: Culture Rising runs from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 30, 2026, and the Fireman has made it very clear he plans to leave nothing on the table.
