Yvonne Ba­boolal

Machel Mon­tano, who ran away with the Road March and In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch ti­tles this Car­ni­val with his song Ad­van­tage, said he want­ed peo­ple to re­mem­ber the great come­back he made. He was re­spond­ing to ques­tions dur­ing an in­ter­view on CNC3 last night about freestyle com­ments made dur­ing his per­for­mance at the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch show. He said freestyling was part of T&T's cul­tur­al art­form and he did not think any­thing he said was of­fen­sive.

He said he want­ed to make a good re­turn this year but the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch caught him by sur­prise. "The So­ca Monarch was far off the radar for me. It was a snap de­ci­sion and turned out to be the biggest chal­lange to have a good voice to sing on that night." Mon­tano said his fo­cus gave him the win­ning edge. He said he planned every­thing down to a sci­ence, in­clud­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion, which was a com­bi­na­tion of art and cul­ture.

Mon­tano at­trib­uted his suc­cess to song­writer, Ker­nal Roberts, com­pos­er of Ad­van­tage. "Ker­nal Roberts is the mas­ter. It's he who has the road march. "I told him I'm com­ing back this year. He worked last year for JW and Blaze (who won road march with Palance). "I told him make sure to give me a good song and I left it in his hands. "He came up with what was most im­por­tant for the coun­try, the re­turn to the stage (at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah)."