Rhon­dor Dowlat

Machel Mon­tano did it "Like ah Boss" when he copped the Lot­to Plus In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er Monarch for the fourth con­sec­u­tive time.This vic­to­ry brought the cur­tains down on Mon­tano's suc­cess­ful com­pet­i­tive ca­reer.Mon­tano had an­nounced his re­tire­ment from com­pe­ti­tion on­ly a few weeks ago.Af­ter three hours of wait­ing, the most­ly un­re­spon­sive crowd came alive when Monk Monte (Mon­tano) came on stage.

While monks are as­so­ci­at­ed with calm and seren­i­ty, the reign­ing so­ca monarch de­fend­ing cham­pi­on was any­thing but, and the crowd re­spond­ed in kind. Dressed in gold and red and emerg­ing from a race car Mon­tano cap­ti­vat­ed the au­di­ence from start to fin­ish.

The crowd trans­formed from peo­ple to trum­pets mim­ic­k­ing on com­mand the brass sounds of his hit "Like Ah Boss". Mon­tano who was poked fun at by Neil "Iw­er" George fo­cused all his at­ten­tion on singing rather than tak­ing jabs at his op­po­nents. At the end of the night Mon­tano showed he did it like a boss and col­lect­ed the $2 mil­lion cheque to prove it.

Com­pared to Mon­tano, first run­ner-up George's pre­sen­ta­tion was tame. George, who did not have the crowd re­sponse he was ac­cus­tomed to, left the stage atop a truck flanked by mas­querad­ing women.Dur­ing his per­for­mance he had a mas­quer­ad­er and a queen with him while he him­self was out­fit­ted in a car­ni­val cos­tume. Gold and black to be ex­act.

Near­ing the end of his per­for­mance he told the crowd Mon­tano had been win­ning ever since the Gov­ern­ment came to pow­er in 2010 and if the self-pro­fessed King George didn't win this year, next year un­der the PNM he would sure­ly take first prize.By the be­gin­ning of the next Car­ni­val, elec­tions would have gone and George will ei­ther have proph­e­sied or lied. In the mean­time, he had to play mas with his sec­ond prize.

One of the favourites this year, mak­ing her de­but in the com­pe­ti­tion and plac­ing third was lo­cal come­di­enne Nik­ki Cros­by.Cros­by, dressed as her com­i­cal char­ac­ter Granny, belt­ed out her orig­i­nal and very cre­ative hit with con­fi­dence. At one point dur­ing the per­for­mance, "Granny" de­clared that the com­pe­ti­tion was re­al­ly be­tween her and Mon­tano–a state­ment that fired up the spec­ta­tors some more.Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter placed fourth.