In June 2007, the copyright holders of the song, Sparta Florida Music Group, started legal action against Paris Hilton and Warner Chappell Music for plagiarism due to alleged similarities between "Kingston Town" and Hilton's song "Stars Are Blind".
[2] English reggae band UB40 covered "Kingston Town" in 1989 and released it as a single in early 1990.
It became the group's sixth top-five hit on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number four for three weeks in April 1990.
In the United States, the song was serviced to rhythmic contemporary radio on 17 October 1995,[3] in tandem with The Best of UB40 – Volume Two, but it failed to chart.
David Giles of Music Week described "Kingston Town" as a "pleasant but perfunctory cover" less commercial than UB40's previous two singles, and deemed it was likely not to be a hit.