An­ge­lo Mar­celle

Machel Mon­tano has con­firmed his en­try in­to the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion with the aim of el­e­vat­ing the stan­dard of the con­test. The last time Mon­tano com­pet­ed in the So­ca Monarch was in 1996 with Take a Bor­row. "I was a per­son who don't be­lieve in com­pe­ti­tion, and I still don't be­lieve in it," Mon­tano said.

"Right now it is not about com­pe­ti­tion, it is about rais­ing the stan­dard and mak­ing every­body work hard. "I felt that I took a year off to fur­ther so­ca mu­sic and I did just that. "Now I feel like I have to fur­ther it at home. Now every­body has to work ex­tra hard. They will feel that the game has risen and they will bring their best." he said.

"It must have some­body out there who feels that they could beat Machel Mon­tano. Machel Mon­tano is not big­ger than any­body... the field is lev­el," he said. When asked if he be­lieved his im­age would be marred if he did not win the com­pe­ti­tion, he re­spond­ed: "Well my im­age could nev­er drop, and I am per­form­ing in the So­ca Monarch and some­times you have to stoop to con­quer. "I'm not say­ing that per­form­ing in So­ca Monarch is stoop­ing, it is ac­tu­al­ly very valiant." He said he was do­ing it be­cause a lot of the young peo­ple were now feel­ing the en­er­gy of the So­ca Monarch. "I'm see­ing where a lot of DJ want to sing. I think it is im­por­tant for me to come back in the com­pe­ti­tion and to make a full re­turn. "I had a vibe where I felt the en­er­gy of it."

The artiste made an ex­plo­sive ap­pear­ance at the bmo­bile-spon­sored Car­ni­val par­ty in To­ba­go on Jan­u­ary 28. En­ti­tled To­ba­go So­ca Spree 6, the event was held in Scar­bor­ough.

The evening start­ed off slow, with par­ty-go­ers grad­u­al­ly fil­ter­ing in­to the venue, by which time To­ba­go's biggest band, Fire Fu­sion, had al­ready per­formed. Kees Def­fein­taller ig­nit­ed the gy­rat­ing fumes that were al­ready re­leased in­to the air, as he start­ed his set with pop­u­lar dit­ty, Wot­less. At that point the crowd's en­er­gy was at an all time high, and it nev­er dropped. Per­former af­ter per­former-Busy Sig­nal, Swap­pi, Shal Mar­shal, TC, Busy Sig­nal, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, Patrice Roberts, Zan, Farmer Nap­py, Screws, Lil Rick and Mon­tano-came on stage giv­ing par­ty-go­ers their mon­ey's worth.