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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Cro Cro defamation loss won’t muzzle calypso, say veterans

by

Otto Carrington
386 days ago
20240131

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

There were mixed views with­in the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty yes­ter­day, af­ter vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian We­st­on “Cro Cro” Rawl­ins lost a defama­tion law­suit to busi­ness­man In­shan Ish­mael over a song he sang last year.

On Mon­day, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad ruled that Rawl­ins had de­famed Ish­mael in his 2023 song An­oth­er Sat is Out­side Again and or­dered the ca­lyp­son­ian to pay $250,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Dr Hol­lis “Chalk­dust” Liv­er­pool made it clear that ca­lyp­so­ni­ans must take the law in­to con­sid­er­a­tion.

“A good ca­lyp­son­ian is an in­tel­li­gent per­son, and a good ca­lyp­son­ian has to use the mask. When you use the mask, it be­comes a part of how a ca­lyp­son­ian sings ca­lyp­so. The art form makes use of the mask; in oth­er words, you can sing and at­tack a per­son, but you can’t bla­tant­ly at­tack a per­son’s char­ac­ter.”

He added that all good ca­lyp­so­ni­ans know this and know that you can’t at­tack a per­son’s char­ac­ter be­cause it’s against the law.

“Whether you’re singing ca­lyp­so, so­ca, or talk­ing about any­thing at all, you can’t at­tack a per­son’s char­ac­ter. That’s the law. So, you have to learn how to say it. If you want to at­tack some­body open­ly, you have to learn how to say it.”

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view af­ter the rul­ing on Mon­day, Ish­mael said he was pleased with the out­come, which he sug­gest­ed would serve to im­prove the art form.

But Chalk­dust ex­plained that the le­gal ac­tion was un­like­ly to change ca­lyp­so­ni­ans singing about the con­tro­ver­sial or high­ly charged top­ics.

“We can’t stop singing ca­lyp­so and we can’t stop singing po­lit­i­cal ca­lyp­so. That’s a beau­ti­ful thing. Good po­lit­i­cal ca­lyp­so is a beau­ti­ful thing, a beau­ti­ful art that we have. We can’t throw away that. We can’t stop singing po­lit­i­cal ca­lyp­so.”

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted to be­ing con­cerned about the amount Cro Cro had to pay.

“I was kind of up­set with the judge. If the judge is say­ing that some parts of the ca­lyp­so are good, very good, and out­stand­ing, we are still try­ing to fine Cro Cro so much mon­ey, but I don’t know what part is and how he ar­rived at the $250,000. He should say, for this, I charge you so and so, and for that, I take away that. We should show how he ar­rived at $250,000 be­cause very few ca­lyp­soes can make $250,000 in any sea­son,” he said.

He not­ed that even when Cro Cro won the crown he made as much as $250,000 and it was a very steep sum to pay.

An­oth­er vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian, Michael “Sug­ar Aloes” Os­una, said ca­lyp­so­ni­ans were ful­ly aware of the thin line they tread when deal­ing with the so­cial and po­lit­i­cal is­sues with­in the so­ci­ety and, as such, should al­ways en­sure they do not open them­selves up to li­a­bil­i­ty.

“Well, there are so many peo­ple who do that, you know. I think the in­di­vid­ual is the on­ly per­son who be­lieves he was un­touch­able. The on­ly per­son, but every­body else used to be very care­ful,” he said.

He added, “I have nev­er put my­self in a sit­u­a­tion such that some­body could think that my state­ment was defam­a­to­ry or what­ev­er have you. Any­thing I sing about was ei­ther in the press, in the pa­pers, or on TV or what­ev­er have you, but I have nev­er slan­dered any­body. So I wouldn’t get my­self in some­thing like that.”

He added, “As you know, some­times, ac­cord­ing to old peo­ple, every day the buck­et goes in­to the well, one day this had to stop, and if In­shan feels of­fend­ed and he seeks jus­tice with it and he got through, ku­dos to them.”

Sug­ar Aloes too did not feel the de­ci­sion would muz­zle ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.

“No, it’s not a way of muz­zling no ca­lyp­so; it’s not a way of muz­zling noth­ing. It’s a way of telling you to be care­ful of what you’re say­ing and have con­crete ev­i­dence in what you’re say­ing. You must have con­crete ev­i­dence in what you’re say­ing, and if you have ev­i­dence, you can’t wor­ry; you have noth­ing to wor­ry about. No­body can sue you for the truth.”

Mean­while, cul­ture and ca­lyp­so au­thor and his­to­ri­an Zeno Obi Con­stance, who was called as an ex­pert wit­ness in the case, not­ed that Cro Cro was the first ca­lyp­son­ian to ever be sued for defama­tion.

He said po­lit­i­cal ca­lyp­so has been fac­ing chal­lenges for quite some time and at this mo­ment, from the com­men­tary he had seen on so­cial me­dia about the case, Cro Cro did not have the full sup­port of those in the in­dus­try.

“It’s Cro Cro and he doesn’t have much sup­port among ca­lyp­so­ni­ans be­cause that is his up­per­cut and it was too vi­cious. Cro Cro used to at­tack ca­lyp­so­ni­ans if they tell him some­thing he didn’t like,” he said.


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