On hear­ing Hol­lis "Mr Kil­la" Mapp’s song Run Wid It, pa­trons have been pick­ing up tents, cool­ers, chairs, bar­ri­cades, fur­ni­ture, corn soup, oth­er peo­ple's prop­er­ty, and even women with­out their per­mis­sion.

It’s no doubt the Grena­di­an so­ca star has pro­duced prob­a­bly the biggest “run­away hit” for Car­ni­val 2019. Af­ter all, it’s one of the songs dom­i­nat­ing Car­ni­val events with over­whelm­ing sup­port from fans as well as a cur­rent ‘most trend­ing’ par­o­dy on so­cial me­dia.

But de­spite the song’s abil­i­ty to cre­ate ex­cite­ment and fun for ar­dent fete go­ers, the TTPS has warned that with­out per­mis­sion, these acts could be deemed vi­o­la­tions of one’s rights.

Last Wednes­day ASP Wayne Mys­tar cau­tioned par­ty­go­ers that by com­ply­ing with the in­struc­tion to pick up some­thing (in­clud­ing peo­ple) and ‘run with it,’ with­out per­mis­sion, they would be com­mit­ting a crim­i­nal of­fence.

He told me­dia, the po­lice had re­ceived sev­er­al calls from pa­trons and ven­dors who com­plained of their be­long­ings be­ing picked up and not re­turned, which is "one of the in­gre­di­ents for lar­ce­ny".

"There are a lot of of­fences that could stem from some of the ac­tions tak­ing place of be­ing al­lowed by this par­tic­u­lar song," Mys­tar said.

In light of a sup­posed di­vide on the song’s lyri­cal con­tent and what it pro­pos­es to ag­i­tate, the Sun­day Guardian spoke with a few stake­hold­ers who shared mixed views about the pop­u­lar song.

Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly:

"Ac­tion songs have al­ways been a high­light of so­ca and Car­ni­val, whether it gives in­struc­tions to wave, wine, or move to the left. I don't be­lieve we should over­think this song; nor should we over­do it. There's good Tri­ni fun, and then there's just plain fool­ish be­hav­iour. We've gen­er­al­ly been able to make the dis­tinc­tion. I trust we have not lost that in­nate abil­i­ty."

Ryan "DJ Pri­vate Ryan" Alexan­der:

"If peo­ple get car­ried away with­out due dili­gence, it does have the po­ten­tial to be a song that you have to be care­ful with. When you’re talk­ing about hav­ing fun and pick­ing up some­thing and then de­stroy­ing prop­er­ty, it goes in­to an­oth­er realm. An­oth­er ex­am­ple is when you're on the road and you de­cide to take up some­body’s mail­box that, too, is when it goes be­yond the realm of fun and in­to the de­struc­tion of prop­er­ty.

There are two sides to it; so far there's been no ma­jor in­ci­dents. I'm not say­ing peo­ple can't have fun, but when it goes in­to an­oth­er space where peo­ple can be in­jured and when it starts af­fect­ing ven­dors and their prod­ucts; that's when they crossed the line."

At­tor­ney Kei­th Scot­land:

"By no means what­so­ev­er can I agree to any in­cite­ment to do any­thing il­le­gal. When did hu­man be­ings be­come like an­i­mals that don’t have a con­scious choice? So when you play mu­sic, the an­i­mal moves with­out think­ing. I am ap­palled. We want to keep the fet­ing clean and en­joy­able and I can­not blame Mr Kil­la for singing his song. But it is some of the peo­ple, they're sup­posed to say no, this is not like mov­ing to the left and right. I don’t mind mov­ing to the left and right where every­body's hand is raised, but it's not cool to go with peo­ple's corn soup or prop­er­ty."

Ca­lyp­son­ian An­tho­ny "Broth­er Valenti­no" Em­rold Phillip:

“There are char­ac­ters es­pe­cial­ly around this time of the year when peo­ple get in­tox­i­cat­ed. Mu­sic is a very in­flu­en­tial fac­tor in life at that point in time, so peo­ple will have the ten­den­cy to lose con­trol of them­selves and any­thing could hap­pen. It's six of one, half a dozen of the oth­er, so these things could es­ca­late.”

Mu­sic truck provider for one of the "big bands" in Port-of-Spain:

"Our mu­sic sys­tem is too large and heavy for peo­ple to move. The mu­sic box­es, gen­er­a­tors, and para­pher­na­lia used on the truck are all huge. They're prop­er­ly se­cured al­so for in­sur­ance cov­er­age be­cause the trail­ers are con­stant­ly mov­ing."

Au­thor Deb­bie Ja­cob:

"Aw­ful! Rum could nev­er be any­one’s “friend”, and in this time of so­cial chaos and crime, it is to­tal­ly ir­re­spon­si­ble to sing about de­stroy­ing any­thing–in­clud­ing some­one’s par­ty. En­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to grab some­thing and run with it, ad­vo­cates break­ing the law. No one has the right to pick up some­one or take some­thing from any­one, as this is en­cour­ag­ing law­less­ness. Al­co­hol can’t make you “Su­per­man”, and to put that no­tion in­to im­pres­sion­able minds is dan­ger­ous and down­right ir­re­spon­si­ble. Some­times I feel that we are a coun­try that as­pires to make peo­ple al­co­holics. Fetes, car­ni­val, con­certs—all cel­e­bra­tions, de­pend on drink­ing and that is hav­ing a trick­ling ef­fect on be­hav­iour in so­ci­ety. Why must Car­ni­val al­ways have a rum song? It's a song that is not fun­ny or help­ful or use­ful. It vi­o­lates peo­ple's rights to feel safe and com­fort­able in a fete. And you know there will al­ways be some ‘sheep’ in a par­ty that fol­lows the stu­pid ad­vice."