Aba A Luke

For over a decade the name Machel Mon­tano has been syn­ony­mous with the Great­est Show on Earth. From child prodi­gy to liv­ing leg­end, Machel Mon­tano the en­ter­tain­er has thrilled crowds across the world, leav­ing a last­ing im­pres­sion in the minds of many who are yet to even voy­age to T&T. In 2011, 36–year- old Mon­tano will make his re­turn to the fes­ti­val, af­ter sit­ting out C2K10 to fo­cus on new projects. In a lengthy chat with the T&T Guardian, Machel said the time tak­en this past sea­son, al­lowed him to work on the new sound of Machel Mon­tano.

"The mea­sures I took in terms of go­ing on tour with Pit­bull al­lowed me to meet pro­duc­ers over­seas. We all sat down and looked at things and de­cid­ed to con­cen­trate on get­ting the sound of the Caribbean out there."

Machel said he just couldn't do two things at once, and so he sat out Car­ni­val 2010. "I'm sat­is­fied with where I've reached and now I feel that I can man­age the two," he ex­plained, fur­ther in­di­cat­ing that for this rea­son he felt com­fort­able re­turn­ing to the fes­ti­val next year. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Machel said he felt that the coun­try was on a re­turn to re­al­i­ty, this fol­low­ing the May 2010 elec­tion re­sult. "I saw that the peo­ple want­ed to re­turn to a greater sense of uni­ty. I felt it was im­por­tant for me to punc­tu­ate this re-awak­en­ing," he said.

The Re­turn Is com­ing

The jour­ney to March 7 and 8 has al­ready be­gun for many artistes, and like the rest of the bunch, Machel is al­ready hard at work. He re­vealed that things would of­fi­cial­ly kick off for him from Box­ing Day. "There are a lot of job of­fers on the ta­ble and I'm analysing it all. I want to reach as many fans as pos­si­ble at many events but I won't say which events I'll be at just yet." Ex­plain­ing that he had to leave the ad­ver­tise­ment of his name at con­firmed events up to the re­spec­tive pro­mot­ers, the so­ca king went on to plug his very own con­cert-a re­place­ment to the Al­ter­na­tive Con­cept, dubbed, The Re­turn.

"It'll take place around the same time that AC was held, at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um. To me, this show will be a whole new vibe com­plete with a lot of new mu­sic," said Mon­tano, adding that much of his fo­cus was on start­ing a new trend of mu­sic with a brand new im­age, and a lot of sur­pris­es. "This will be the moth­er of all events," he guar­an­teed. On the is­sue of the HD band and the HD Fam­i­ly, Machel made it clear that the HD band com­prised his mu­si­cians, among them Ker­nel Robert and res­i­dent key­boardist Dwain O'Bri­an Antrobus from Bar­ba­dos. He said while he had been try­ing to make peo­ple un­der­stand the dif­fer­ence be­tween both en­ti­ties, the HD band seemed to be con­tin­u­ous­ly mis­in­ter­pret­ed, with most peo­ple bunch­ing both groups to­geth­er. "The HD band con­sists of sev­en mem­bers, but the HD Fam­i­ly was formed to en­cour­age so­lo artistes to de­vel­op them­selves. Farmer be­came re­spect­ed as a so­lo artiste in the HD Fam­i­ly or­gan­i­sa­tion af­ter be­ing a part of the band for many years," he high­light­ed.

Point­ing to the growth of fe­male artiste Patrice Roberts, Machel said he had al­ways ex­pressed to every­one in the fam­i­ly the need for them to de­vel­op as so­lo artistes. "Patrice is one of the most worked fe­male artistes in the in­dus­try," he said, ex­plain­ing that since the name Xtat­ic was dropped and HD ac­quired, the con­cept of hav­ing a band changed. Machel al­so in­di­cat­ed that Umi Mar­cano had since made his de­par­ture from the HD Fam­i­ly. "He is try­ing to find him­self. Umi is much more than a so­ca artiste. He needs to find where he wants to be and I sup­port that. This is how you get a chance to be­come your best," said Machel.

The evo­lu­tion of so­ca

On the mu­sic, Machel ad­mit­ted that so­ca mu­sic has been chang­ing. "I'd con­sid­er so­ca to be a young mu­sic-about 40-years-old," he said, point­ing out that it start­ed with Ras Shorty I in the 70's and evolved over the years. "There's a new in­flux of fresh artistes. We are con­stant­ly look­ing for some­thing new. There was a time when there was a crit­i­cal de­sire to take so­ca in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. But there have al­so been times when the gen­er­al fo­cus has been get­ting out the best of the lo­cal mu­sic," said Mon­tano. He high­light­ed that such sit­u­a­tions all made up the gen­er­al ex­is­tence of so­ca as a mu­si­cal genre and a part of Caribbean cul­ture.

"My un­der­stand­ing is that so­ca is em­bed­ded in me as an artiste. I am es­tab­lished not on­ly as a lo­cal artiste, but al­so in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and de­vel­op­ing my sound over the years meant that I would be car­ry­ing so­ca to the world. It was a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion." Machel re­it­er­at­ed that his con­stant ob­jec­tive was that of reach­ing every cor­ner of the globe. "I want to make more mu­sic, ex­per­i­ment with mu­sic and try new sounds. I'm not try­ing to win Road March. I just like to make peo­ple hap­py," said the high pro­file so­ca star.

Mu­sic made with God in mind

Per­son­al­ly, Mon­tano said he felt his spir­i­tu­al depth was mis­un­der­stood, em­pha­sis­ing that he be­lieved his life as an artiste was re­al­ly about a high­er pur­pose. "I take the fact that I have been placed here and I have been cra­dled in calyspo, so­ca and Caribbean mu­sic for a rea­son. I am not the most tal­ent­ed mu­si­cian. I am not the best singer. How­ev­er, I have a think­ing process that I use well to bring things across to peo­ple, so that they are in­spired," he said. Machel said most of his lyrics were writ­ten with a high­er be­ing in mind. "Peo­ple don't un­der­stand that when I sing Dance With You-I'm re­al­ly singing to God, and We Will Car­ry On was re­al­ly an­oth­er spir­i­tu­al re­frain. Tell the Boss I Need A Break was my mes­sage to God," he stat­ed, adding, "I re­al­ly feel that the peo­ple who un­der­stand me best, feel it and re­al­ly get it."

Machel the man

When he isn't singing on stage or record­ing in stu­dio, Machel Mon­tano can be found out­doors. He said that when he does get time to him­self, he en­joyed hik­ing, be­ing in the bush, go­ing to rivers and beach­es. "I've been ex­plor­ing deserts," he said, adding that he en­joyed read­ing things that could open his mind. "I al­so like watch­ing movies, doc­u­men­taries, and bowl­ing, and I like to cook," he af­firmed. His per­son­al en­thu­si­asm for things with­in Car­ni­val has been al­tered in the past few years. "A cou­ple years ago play­ing mas would have been the thing in Car­ni­val for me per­son­al­ly, but when peo­ple see me they want to take pic­tures and wine. So now I just want to see peo­ple en­joy them­selves. I want them to be hap­py, and when I say 'get on bad' I mean have a good jump, have a good time and get home safe­ly with the mem­o­ry that Machel Mon­tano of­fered a great ex­pe­ri­ence."

No beef with Shur­wayne

With much to come in the sea­son ahead, Mon­tano said he prayed for a peace­ful fes­ti­val. He al­so dis­closed that the in­ci­dent be­tween him and fel­low artiste, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, was wa­ter un­der the bridge. "I'm a guy who lives in the present. I don't dwell in the past. Every­thing is good on that front. We see each oth­er and hail each oth­er and every­thing is good," he con­firmed. Mon­tano's jour­ney to his cur­rent po­si­tion has been quite a ride, and there's no doubt that the weeks ahead will be quite ex­cit­ing for the both the artiste and the peo­ple who'll be look­ing on.