Former Calypso Monarch Weston “Cro Cro” Rawlins has been ordered to pay businessman Inshan Ishmael for defamatory statements he made in his 2023 calypso ‘Another Sat is Outside Again.’
Ishmael sued Rawlins in 2023 after video recordings of the former monarch’s performance at a TUCO competition went viral.
Ishmael claimed the calypso, performed on February 5, 2023, directly named and defamed him.
In the ruling today, Justice Frank Seepersad said there song featured defamatory portions which were not “satire, picong or clever critique,” but “salacious and derogative.”
The judge said it was reprehensible to use the artform to attack a person’s reputation.
Rawlins was ordered to pay $215,000 in general damages, with an uplift for aggravating damages. Seepersad also ordered the former calypso monarch to pay Ishmael exemplary damages of $35,000.
Ishmael’s defamation claim also included the Copyright Organisation of Trinidad and Tobago (COTT), but that was dismissed by the judge.