Will Ipa face legal action over song?

Calypsonian Grantley “Ipa” Constance may face legal action over the lyrics of a song in which he takes jabs at reigning calypso monarch Zamfir “Man Zangie” Adams.

According to Constance, the 2019 release was inspired by the public, but Adams seems to not be taking the release in stride.

When contacted on Wednesday, Adams refused to address rumours that he intends to take legal action. “I am not aware,” he said, while skirting our question about if he had retained a lawyer to deal with the matter.

On Wednesday, during a press briefing, Constance said he was not concerned about being sued.

“They say I am morally wrong and ethically wrong and they going to sue, so I am still waiting on the sue because I love ladies, so sue, I welcome you,” Constance told reporters at a press conference of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Calypsonians Association (SVGCA).

Constance told reporters that his job as a supervisor at the Public Health Department means that on a daily basis, he interacts with many people and the lyrics of the song were inspired by some of these conversations.

He said he was at work one day and someone asked him, “Ipa how come you allow this man to beat up aryo every year? The man does sound like he singing in a choir.”

Constance added that on another occasion, someone commented, “How aryo go beat Zangie when he is a policeman in the band singing and he getting all the practice.”

“If people giving me that information what I must do? Do not process it as a calypsonian? Well I can’t help doing what I doing,” Constance told reporters.

“What we do as calypsonians, we take the voice of the people who can’t say it for themselves, we take that message from the people and we broadcast it.

“So, every single thing you hear in my song is what I heard people saying. I just craft it and put it together with some music, thanks to people like Brian Alexander,” Constance reiterated.

The name ‘Bullen’, a reference to Adams’s Trinidadian writer Sheldon “Nugget” Bullen, is mentioned in the song, and Constance said people are making their own interpretations.

He said he thinks it is hypocritical that most of the people who are criticizing his song did not have a problem with Lornette “Fya Empress” Nedd’s song “Guilty” which was one of two songs she performed to win the National Calypso Crown in 2017, the other being “Hope is Alive”.

Nedd’s song spoke about her catching her lover in bed with a man and resorting to violence.

“The person who won calypso monarch in 2017, she said that her relationship ended when she caught her husband and another man in the same bed, and she kill him, and she would do it again, so she is guilty as charged. You know nobody ain’t have no problem with that?” said Constance.