Machel Mon­tano is cred­it­ing his longevi­ty in the so­ca are­na to work­ing with young peo­ple who keep his mu­sic fresh. 

He was speak­ing yes­ter­day as he was pre­sent­ed with a cash prize  $250,000.00 spon­sored by Bmo­bile as the win­ner of the 2025 TU­CO/Bmo­bile Road March Com­pe­ti­tion for the song, Pardy.

He called on pro­duc­er  Xplic­it­Mevon, co-pro­duc­er Kyle Phillips, Bad­john Re­pub­lic, and writer An­dre Jef­fers to join him on stage. “Now, you see these four here, but if we re­al­ly had to bring the whole team in here, the room wouldn't be big enough,” Mon­tano said.

Even as he col­lect­ed his prize he was look­ing for­ward to the next ti­tle.

"We'll see you all here again next year!" He said to laugh­ter. "With a big­ger cheque. I think this should be a mil­lion-dol­lar prize. This de­serves to be a mil­lion-dol­lar prize. Can I get an­oth­er round of ap­plause for this? If noth­ing else, we must hon­or our tra­di­tions and keep the youth striv­ing for more."

Re­flect­ing on what makes a Road March spe­cial, Mon­tano de­scribed it as a unique cre­ative pur­suit. “Win­ning a Road March is like no oth­er feel­ing in the world. You feel this sat­is­fac­tion of pro­duc­ing some­thing that is on every­body's lips, mov­ing every foot, every waist, every hand,” he said. “The hunt of a Road March is like no oth­er. We're not just hunt­ing to win a cheque or prize. We're hunt­ing to see peo­ple sing, ‘we're ready!" As he be­gan to sing the open­ing to his 2007 Road March hit "Jumbie."

He al­so high­light­ed the role of young tal­ent in his longevi­ty: “The re­al trick is keep em­brac­ing the young tal­ent, keep em­brac­ing the youth who have the ideas, who have the en­thu­si­asm, who have the en­er­gy.”

He thanked oth­ers he worked with over the years like Ker­nal Roberts, Je­lani "Pops" Shaw. Kasey Phillips, Full-blown,  Lon­don, Fu­ture, Da­da from Do­mini­ca. Skin­ny Fab­u­lous, Bun­ji Gar­lin, and Patrice Roberts. 

Mon­tano thanked fel­low per­form­ers, video col­lab­o­ra­tors, and fam­i­lies who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the mu­sic video, say­ing that, for him, “Road March­es are not a com­pe­ti­tion, road March­es are an ho­n­our.”