Cro Cro versus Sugar Aloes

Part 4

CALYPSO feuds have been part of the calypso tradition dating back to the first calypso tents, but the ongoing rivalry between Cro Cro (Weston Rawlins) and Sugar Aloes (Michael Osouna) ranks among the most vicious feuds in calypso history. Like always, the question patrons in the audience must ask is how much of the musical duel is real and how much is for show?

Before their feud, both Cro Cro and Sugar Aloes sang stinging political and social commentary and vicious picong aimed at politicians. Then they turned on each other

“Aloes was a butcher by profession before singing calypso, and he said he used words the way he chopped meat,” says UWI Professor Emeritus Dr Gordon Rohlehr.

“It have nothing with me and Cro Cro. That guy is just ignorant, and I decided to stay away from him. I would say it’s not a feud, it’s a misunderstanding,” Aloes said.

“I saw the battle as a good – not as serious as it had ended up, because I was trying to rejuvenate the ambience of Melody and Sparrow. I think we could have pretended it was a feud, and it would have benefited both of us, but we had a show billed as Aloes versus Cro Cro and he was disrespectful to me,” says Aloes.

Aloes won the Calypso Monarch title twice, in 2002 with Contribution and Jubilation and in 2008 with Reflections, all milder versions of his past social/political commentary.

A milder version of Aloes appeared to enrage Cro Cro even more.

“Aloes is afraid (of) me. Everybody is fraid of me,” says Cro Cro. Tobago Crusoe (Ortnell Bacchus) told me once there’s something like fatal attraction in calypso,” said Cro Cro, who won the calypso monarch titles four times. His wins often sparked public debate beginning in 1988 with Three Bo Rats, which criticised the NAR coalition, and Corruption in Common Entrance which questioned Afro-Trinidadians failure in education.

In 1990 he won with Political Dictionary and Party, a picong-filled pun on party politics. In 1996 he sang Dey Look for Dat and Support Commentary Calypso. He pulled a giant cardboard suitcase across the stage for his last win in 2007, Nobody Ain’t Gonna Know, an attack on those who flee from political corruption.

Rohlehr believes that the Cro Cro/Aloes feud fits the bill of bygone rivalries, which boiled down to business.

“When Sugar Aloes took over Kitchener’s Revue after Kitchener’s death in 2000 and Cro Cro opened up his Icons calypso tent, both calypsonians had financial challenges. Strapped for cash, Aloes decided to perform in a UNC show, which he must have felt would help to get government funding,” said Rohlehr. Cro Cro sang he was ‘poor, proud and pious,’ and he would never stoop to crossing over and singing for the UNC just for money.

“That was the core of their controversy. The feud developed over who was the authentic political protester,” said Rohlehr.

“There’s a sense that Cro Cro’s anger is genuine. He has more or less appointed himself a border guard for black people.”

Sugar Aloes said political calypso is essential but laments that “you get victimised by whoever you are referring to.”

Cro Cro said that political calypso “…opened the eyes of black people from slavery through colonialism. Calypso was born as a protest thing, and it is still a protest thing. Political kaiso is sacred. We are as knowledgable as lawyers, and Government can’t touch us.”

Cro Cro said cancelling Carnival calypso competitions this year doesn’t bother him.

“Everybody will always want me. I write kaiso every day. I want to write a song right now that covid should last for ten to 20 years because the judges won’t get a chance to rob me again. It’s a mad world, but they can’t beat me in a walking race.”

For this year, Cro Cro’s battle with the calypso judges has been postponed.