KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

“Let them do what they have to do,” a de­fi­ant We­st­on “Cro Cro” Rawl­ins said, fol­low­ing news that Bam­boo busi­ness­man In­shan Ish­mael is threat­en­ing a defama­tion law­suit against him.

Rawl­ins told Guardian Me­dia that he did not re­ceive a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter from Ish­mael or his at­tor­ney Richard Jag­gasar, nor did he see any re­ports of it as he does not watch the news.

“I have not re­ceived any let­ter from any man.”

Rawl­ins al­so de­nied that the per­son he re­ferred to in the ca­lyp­so ti­tled “An­oth­er Sat Around Again” was Ish­mael.

In the let­ter on Mon­day, Ja­gas­sar said the ca­lyp­so iden­ti­fies Ish­mael as the sub­ject and links the For­eign-Used Ve­hi­cles deal­er with stolen car parts in Bam­boo. Jages­sar said defam­a­to­ry re­marks in the ca­lyp­so about Ish­mael were un­true, low­er­ing his client’s rep­u­ta­tion and re­sult­ing in a loss of sales at his busi­ness. Ish­mael, al­so a tele­vi­sion pre­sen­ter, wants Rawl­ins to pay gen­er­al dam­ages for defama­tion, ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages, costs and any fur­ther re­liefs a court con­sid­ers ap­pro­pri­ate. He al­so wants Rawl­ins to im­me­di­ate­ly is­sue a writ­ten apol­o­gy and pub­lish it in all three dai­ly news­pa­pers and an in­junc­tion pre­vent­ing him from per­form­ing any song that de­fames him.

How­ev­er, when told that Ish­mael wants him to stop per­form­ing the ca­lyp­so, Rawl­ins said they could not tell him not to per­form his song. He plans to sing it at his up­com­ing gigs.

“That is down­right, out­right im­per­ti­nent. They can­not ban me from singing any­thing. I am not wor­ry­ing about them. My thing is, I am not singing about In­shan Ish­mael. I do not know how he can de­pict my song as In­shan Ish­mael. My song is in I-M-C-H-A-N I-M-C-H-E-L-L-E, so I do not know what prob­lem he has, and we will take it down the line,” Rawl­ins said.

Should the for­mer Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch fail to re­spond to the let­ter, he may face the High Court.

How­ev­er, Rawl­in said: “Let them do what they have to do. If they are big, I am sure I am big too, so I will do what I have to when the time comes.”

In re­sponse yes­ter­day, Ish­mael said he has no in­ten­tion to pull out of the le­gal ac­tion and is com­ing for Rawl­ins’ Mer­cedes-Benz E350, al­though he does not like to dri­ve ve­hi­cles over 20 years old.

Ish­mael said he was ex­cit­ed about the im­pend­ing le­gal ac­tion and went shop­ping for a new suit as he lost 2 lbs and was now look­ing sexy. He plans to buy new shoes and socks next.

While Rawl­ins claims Ish­mael was not the sub­ject of his ca­lyp­so, the busi­ness­man said he could re­fer to Face­book, where users com­ment­ing on the song iden­ti­fies him. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he said there is on­ly one Im­chan Im­chelle in Bam­boo.

“The court will de­cide be­cause thou­sands of peo­ple heard Ish­mael, and Cro Cro made it clear that he has court clothes and to tell Ish­mael that he is too damn dis­re­spect­ful. He ad­mit­ted it, and now he is try­ing to back­track,” Ish­mael said.

He said this is a stand for peo­ple who ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and chut­ney singers un­fair­ly tar­get. Ish­mael said artistes must know that any­time they go down a par­tic­u­lar road, they will pay from their pock­ets.

Hav­ing got in­volved in 15 court cas­es and won 14, Ish­mael is con­fi­dent of vic­to­ry.

“My fa­ther was a great man who raised 14 chil­dren. No child was a drunk, a crook, a thief, or com­mit­ted any crime, so I have to pro­tect the Ish­mael name.”