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Sunday, July 20, 2025

Machel confident of sweeping Soca Monarch 2013

by

20130208

It's go­ing to be a "fog­ging, float­ing Fri­day." That is how de­fend­ing Groovy and Pow­er So­ca Monarch cham­pi­on Machel Mon­tano de­scribed how he in­tends to trans­form the at­mos­phere at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um come Feb­ru­ary 8.

Mon­tano was his usu­al high en­er­gy self in a vis­it to the Guardian Me­dia Ltd of­fice last week, when he spoke with the T&T Guardian and did an in­ter­view with Vibe City 105.1FM's Chris Boynes.

The 2012 Monarch is adamant he has no com­pe­ti­tion at this year's Dig­i­cel In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tions. He views the re­turn of so­ca vet­er­an and for­mer five time so­ca monarch win­ner Austin "Su­per Blue" Lyons as mere­ly the stu­dent (him­self) tak­ing on the Mas­ter (Su­per Blue). Mon­tano said it is a com­pe­ti­tion and he in­tends to pull out all the stops.

"I have a lot of re­spect for Su­per. I re­mem­ber as a child I knew I al­ways want­ed to do mu­sic but I was more fo­cused on reg­gae and R&B un­til I saw Su­per Blue dur­ing a per­for­mance at Spec­tac­u­lar Fo­rum throw­ing the mi­cro­phone from hand to hand and mov­ing his feet the way he does, that is when I re­al­ly fell in love with so­ca mu­sic," he said.

He said his team re­mained fo­cused de­spite the re­cent chal­lenges he and his band, the "HD fam­i­ly" have faced. "It's not just Machel go­ing in there it's Ker­nal (Roberts), the writ­ers, the band mem­bers–every­body...it's a team."

Mon­tano not­ed the com­pe­ti­tion is just 35 per cent of the HD fam­i­ly's sea­son as their main fo­cus is first cre­at­ing a great al­bum.

The 38-year-old, who is known to be big on col­lab­o­ra­tions–hav­ing record­ed sev­er­al songs along­side many lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al artistes–has re­al­ly pushed the en­ve­lope this year as he ven­tured to South Africa to work with the cel­e­brat­ed all-male group, La­dy­smith Black Mam­bazo.

Mon­tano de­scribed the col­lab­o­ra­tion as an epic ex­pe­ri­ence.

"Work­ing with La­dy­smith Black Mam­bazo was a re­al achieve­ment for me be­cause the col­lab­o­ra­tion was re­al­ly the group's in­tro­duc­tion to the world of so­ca. "They did not even know where T&T was, much less about the cul­ture."

He said it was his idea to work with the group.

"Ker­win (Dubois) sent me a song and when I lis­tened to it I im­me­di­ate­ly heard their voic­es. I told him and we con­tact­ed their man­age­ment," said Mon­tano.

"With­in days they re­spond­ed and the next thing I know we were on a plane to Africa."

He said a full doc­u­men­tary was made on him­self and the group do­ing the ac­tu­al record­ing.

The song which is ti­tled Pos­sessed was re­leased three weeks ago and is al­ready a favourite among so­ca lovers.

He dis­closed a col­lab­o­ra­tion was al­so done with Amer­i­can R&B Soul group Boyz II Men. The track was sup­posed to be re­leased for Car­ni­val but Mon­tano and his team de­cid­ed to hold it back be­cause the sea­son is so short.

The mul­ti­ple Road March ti­tle hold­er who will be cel­e­brat­ing 31 years in the in­dus­try this year, said his mis­sion has al­ways been to show­case a Michael Jack­son type show in the mid­dle of Car­ni­val where peo­ple can feel the mu­sic, cul­ture and tech­nol­o­gy com­ing to­geth­er to cre­ate a mon­ster pre­sen­ta­tion.

He said he was hap­py Caribbean Pres­tige Foun­da­tion had the fore­sight to cre­ate such a fo­rum where that kind of dream can be­come a re­al­i­ty.

The busy-bod­ied artiste said his plate is so full this sea­son he thinks his next move will be to clone him­self.

So far this year, he has re­leased sev­er­al songs in­clud­ing She Ready, Drink­ing Rum (on the Par­adise Rid­dim), In­di­an Gyal with Chut­ney singer Dru­patee Ram­goon­ai, The Fog, Pos­sessed and Float.

Mon­tano will de­fend his groovy ti­tle singing Fog and will hope to re­main the monarch in the pow­er cat­e­go­ry with Float.

"It is go­ing to be a fog­ging, float­ing Fri­day," he re­it­er­at­ed.

"I put in what I in­tend to get out. This time when I say hov­er, I will show what float­ing is–noth­ing keep­ing we down!"

�2 To vote for Mon­tano in the Pow­er So­ca cat­e­go­ry text MMHD to 7622 and in the Groovy So­ca cat­e­go­ry, text MMHD to 4768.

For more in­for­ma­tion to stay con­nect­ed and fol­low Machel Mon­tano on Twit­ter: @machel­montanohd or vis­it his Face­book page, Machel Mon­tano.

FACT FILE

Col­lab­o­ra­tions: Ad­mi­ral T, Al­i­son Hinds, Bee­nie Man, Ca­lyp­so Rose, Burn­ing Flames, Dru­patee, Wyclef Jean, Canibus, Red Rat, Shag­gy, Spar­row, Denise Bel­fon, Ken Mar­lon Charles (KMC), De­stra, Walk­er Hor­nung, Vy­bz Kar­tel, Mo­hom­bi, G-Unit, Black Stal­in, David Rud­der, Bu­ju Ban­ton, Mr Ve­gas, Doug E Fresh Pit­bull, La­dy­smith Black Mam­bazo and Boyz II Men.

Ed­u­ca­tion: Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege

Lives in: Los An­ge­les

Home Town: Care­nage/Siparia

Hit songs: Too many to list


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