Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

So­ca icon Machel Mon­tano is cred­it­ing his en­dur­ing suc­cess in the in­dus­try to con­stant­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing with young tal­ent who keep his mu­sic vi­brant and rel­e­vant.

Mon­tano made the com­ment yes­ter­day, as he ac­cept­ed a $250,000 prize for win­ning the 2025 TU­CO/bmo­bile Road March Com­pe­ti­tion with his hit Pardy.

Dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion, which was held in bmo­bile’s cor­po­rate box at the Queen’s Park Oval, Port-of-Spain, he in­vit­ed 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 in cel­e­bra­tion, his fo­cus was al­ready on the fu­ture.

“We’ll see you all here again next year!” he de­clared 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 ho­n­our our tra­di­tions and keep the youth striv­ing for more.”

Re­flect­ing on what makes the Road March ti­tle spe­cial, Mon­tano de­scribed it as a cre­ative pur­suit un­like any oth­er.

“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!’” he added, be­fore break­ing in­to the open­ing lines of his 2007 Road March hit Jumbie.

He al­so shared the key to 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 ex­pressed grat­i­tude to sev­er­al col­lab­o­ra­tors who have shaped his ca­reer, in­clud­ing Ker­nal Roberts, Je­lani “Pops” Shaw, Kasey Phillips, Full-Blown, Lon­don, Fu­ture, Da­da from Do­mini­ca, Skin­ny Fab­u­lous, Bun­ji Gar­lin, and Patrice Roberts.
He al­so ex­tend­ed thanks to fel­low per­form­ers, video col­lab­o­ra­tors, and the fam­i­lies who took part in the Pardy mu­sic video, not­ing, “Road March­es are not a com­pe­ti­tion, Road March­es are an ho­n­our.”