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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Ishmael wants Cro Cro to ask citizens not to repost controversial song

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684 days ago
20230407

Derek Achong

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing busi­ness­man In­shan Ish­mael have called on four-time Ca­lyp­so Monarch We­st­on “Cro Cro” Rawl­ins to make a pub­lic plea for cit­i­zens to re­frain from re­post­ing a record­ing of his con­tro­ver­sial song al­leged­ly di­rect­ed at him (Ish­mael). 

On March 18, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad grant­ed an in­junc­tion bar­ring Rawl­ins from per­form­ing por­tions of his song “An­oth­er Sat is Out­side Again”, which Ish­mael con­tends are of­fen­sive and defam­a­to­ry in his law­suit. 

In a let­ter sent to Rawl­ins’ lawyer Ka­reem Mar­celle on Wednes­day, Ish­mael’s lawyer Richard Jag­gasar point­ed out that an unedit­ed ver­sion of a video record­ing of Rawl­ins per­form­ing the song, which sparked the le­gal ac­tion, was still be­ing shared by cit­i­zens on so­cial me­dia. 

The video, which was post­ed on the YouTube page of WYZE 95.9 FM, a ra­dio sta­tion based in Maple­wood, New Jer­sey, had over 56,000 views, up to late yes­ter­day.

“We have on­ly iden­ti­fied three re­pub­li­ca­tions mere­ly to make the point that it has been re­pub­lished/re­post­ed; how­ev­er, if the need aris­es, we will be forced to file claims against each and every per­son who has re­pub­lished/re­post­ed the defam­a­to­ry lyrics as is our client’s right,” Jag­gasar said. 

Al­though the court or­der was on­ly di­rect­ed at Rawl­ins, Jag­gasar called up­on him to pub­licly ask per­sons to “cease and de­sist” from re­pub­lish­ing the song as he claimed that such ac­tion con­sti­tut­ed a breach of Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s or­der. 

“We give your client 24 hours to make such a pub­lic state­ment call­ing on per­sons to cease and de­sist from re­pub­lish­ing and/or post­ing the defam­a­to­ry song and for the im­me­di­ate re­moval of the song al­ready post­ed,” Jag­gasar said. 

“Should your client fail or refuse to do so we have in­struc­tions to take the nec­es­sary steps to en­force the court or­der,” he added. 

In his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Jag­gasar claimed that on Feb­ru­ary 5, Rawl­ins, with the per­mis­sion of the Copy­right Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T (COTT), per­formed a ca­lyp­so that al­leged­ly named his client. 

Rawl­ins al­leged­ly penned the song fol­low­ing so­cial me­dia furore to­wards Ish­mael based on his com­ments on the cel­e­bra­tions host­ed by res­i­dents of Beetham Gar­dens af­ter Mar­celle was called to the bar in No­vem­ber, last year. 

“The lyrics of the song di­rect­ly name, iden­ti­fy, and at­tack the Claimant; and en­cour­ages oth­ers to at­tack the Claimant ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly and to fi­nan­cial­ly ab­stain from his busi­ness­es,” Jag­gasar said. 

“As a re­sult of the lyrics of the song the Claimant is now viewed as a crim­i­nal, a racist, and a thief,” he added. 

Al­though Rawl­ins did not qual­i­fy for the semi­fi­nals of this year’s Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, which took place at Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta in Skin­ner Park in San Fer­nan­do on Feb­ru­ary 11, Jag­gasar claimed that the video of the per­for­mance was wide­ly shared. 

Through the law­suit, Ish­mael is claim­ing gen­er­al and ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages for the al­leged dam­age to his char­ac­ter. 

In grant­i­ng the in­junc­tion, last month, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that while the ca­lyp­so art form has been a cat­a­lyst of aware­ness and change in T&T, it should not be used to en­gage in ill-in­formed and base­less at­tacks on an in­di­vid­ual’s char­ac­ter or in­tegri­ty. 

“We strive to live in a civilised space where free­dom of ex­pres­sion must be bal­anced and must be en­gaged in a rea­son­able, fair, and pro­por­tion­ate man­ner which en­sures that the fun­da­men­tal rights of oth­ers are not evis­cer­at­ed,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said. 

“This court will not con­done or ac­cept any po­si­tion which ad­vances a nar­ra­tive that so­cial me­dia com­ments or com­men­tary by ca­lyp­so­ni­ans is sacro­sanct and that peo­ple should be free to say what­ev­er they feel as they ‘speak their minds’ even if the con­tent is di­vi­sive, deroga­to­ry, de­ceit­ful, dis­hon­est or defam­a­to­ry,” he added. 

The in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion came as Rawl­ins was due to host two shows at the Na­pari­ma Bowl, in San Fer­nan­do, and the Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Plaza, in Port-of-Spain. While Rawl­ins was not barred from per­form­ing the song at the show, he was pre­vent­ed from singing the por­tions which Ish­mael claimed de­famed him. 

Ish­mael’s sub­stan­tive case against Rawl­ins is ex­pect­ed to come up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Seep­er­sad in the com­ing months. 

Ish­mael is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Nigel Tran­coso. —Derek Achong


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