Machel Montano Biography
Machel Montano is a Trinidadian soca singer, actor, record producer and songwriter.
Montano was born in Carenage, and his family moved to Siparia when he was very young. He attended Siparia Boys’ R.C., then Presentation College, a prestigious secondary school in San Fernando, where he was in the choir led by Mrs. Cynthia Lee-Mack.
Machel first shot to fame as a nine-year-old boy with the song “Too Young To Soca” while he was still in primary school. In 1984, along with his older brother Marcus and neighbors, the group Pranasonic Express was started and, in 1989, the band became Statik. In April 1986, at the age of 11, Montano appeared on the mainstream television show Star Search.
In 1987, he took part in the Trinidad and Tobago National Song Writers Festival, and placed second with his song “Dream Girl”. He also won the Caribbean Song Festival in Barbados, becoming the first Trinidadian and youngest contestant to win this
competition.
Machel Montano Age
Machel Montano was born 24 November 1974 and he is the age of 45 years old.
Machel Montano Net Worth
Montano amassed his net worth of $1 million by working as a singer and actor. Though his exact net value has not yet disclosed, he gets paid a reasonable sum of money for his job. For instance, he got paid $100,000 for Music Masters Concert in Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival.
Machel Montano Photo
Machel Montano Family
Father- Winston Montana
Mother- Elizabeth Montana
Daughters- Malaya Journey, Melanie Montana
Son – Nicholas Montana
Machel Montano Songs
. Famalay
. Mr. Fete
. Fast Wine
. Toco Loco
. Like Ah Boss
. Soca Kingdom
. Party Done
. The Road
. One Wine
. Big Fat Fish
. Dr. Mashup
. Happiest Man Alive
. Dr. Mashup 2
. Ministry of Road
. You
. Too Young to Soca
. Bend Over
. Release
. Vibes Cyah Done
. Epic
. Remedy
. Come For It
. Indian Gyal
. Bottle of Rum
. One More Time
. Bring the Beat
. Come Back
. The Fog
. Waiting on the stage
. Gyal Wuki
. In we Blood
. So Good
Machel Montano Movie
Bazodee
Machel Montano Concert
Tinker Field, Orlando, FL, US
Amway Center, Orlando, FL, US
REBEL, Toronto, ON, Canada
Manhattan Center Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, NY, US
Atlanta Museum Bar, Atlanta, GA, US
Machel Montano, The Soul Rebels, Talib Kweli, and Jesse Royal
Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, US
BC Echo Beach, Toronto, ON, Canada
Machel Montano Toronto lyrics
Machel Montano 2019 Songs
. Famalay
. The Road
. Release
. Come For It
. Toco Loco
. Dr. Mashup 2
. Dr. Mashup
. Failing
. Day One
. Jammin
. Brace Up
. So Good
. We Now Start To Party
. Dance
. Super Clean
. Gym Trainer
. Issa Vibe
. Good Vibes Only
. Long Time
. Young Boy
. Workie
. Hot Gyal
Machel Montano Interview
As you have no doubt heard, a Caribbean vibe is all over the American pop landscape these days, thanks to stars like Drake (“One Dance”), Major Lazer (everything), Justin Bieber (“Sorry”), and Sia (“Cheap Thrills,” featuring Sean Paul himself). But the heart of the sound doesn’t belong to dancehall, although that’s there, too, and it certainly doesn’t belong to a tropical house, as you might have read to your dismay. It belongs to soca, the pumped-up, blissed-out sound that was birthed in Trinidad some 30-odd years ago and has long been the Caribbean’s—and the Caribbean diaspora’s—the favorite soundtrack to the carnival.
The growing influence and popularity of soca aren’t limited to the US, either. It’s expanding everywhere, following the international carnival circuit on to London, to Canada, to Africa—where a new subgenre known as afro soca is blending up—and back to the Caribbean, where, as Machel Montano, the king of soca, puts it, you can find “a lot of the French Caribbean islands getting a reintroduction to soca music. Also places like Belize and Bermuda.” The audience, he notes, is “everybody who’s on a certain wavelength. That is why the beat, the soca beat… it’s showing up everywhere. It’s almost like a smiling soul. But the soul smiling to itself.”
If anyone person can be called responsible for soca’s growth, it’s the 41-year-old Montano, who, even before his now-decades-long reign, was soca’s prince, having started singing at seven and made a name for himself by 11.
Noisey: How were your travels?
Machel Montano: It was surreal. Pulling up on a leopard, which is pretty rare. We saw two of them. It was a very spiritual moment. To roll up on them quietly—they should be rolling upon us. But the joy of the moment, it was so natural, just being there and being there in the car out in the vastness, you looking for something and then finding something deep like that.
You hear a lot more about soca in the mainstream here in the US now, but there are also spots in the Caribbean it’s just starting to hit?
Other places in the Caribbean. The young people want to travel, and they do a lot of inter-tourism, not too far and wide, going to Barbados if they’re from Trinidad, or they’re going to Jamaica. They choose to go during carnival week, so there’s partying, people traveling, almost like Woodstock from island to island. There’s also this music, this soca music, that’s being shared across this community as they move. There’s the culture of playing Mas, sometimes playing Jouvert, dressing in oil and paint, people trying that out for the first time. In Trinidad, they have the paint and the powder and the mud. They’re trying that out for the first time. So it’s kind of like a revival of the music, but it’s coming with these kinds of things to do that they’ve never really had. They never had a water fete at six in the morning in Belize. Now they’re having one. It’s because they came to Trinidad, they saw it, they’re adopting that.
Why now?
It’s the fuel we need. It’s like solar power. Humans need joy power. We’ve become numb to the news every day. To a mass shooting in a cinema somewhere. So we just reached that point where we will gravitate to the things that will lift our spirits more. At one point in time, heavy metal and thrash metal were the way people wanted to describe their emotions, some people. I think this is more a time of spiritual upliftment. Soca music is very much like that. Soca is about uniting and mixing African and Indian beats and riding on the similarities. So you’re gonna find, which is already happening, a lot of hip-hop producers taking the swing of the beat and putting it in their hip-hop, a lot of Indian people putting it in Indian music. But it’s that one beat.
One of my favorite things about soca and the emotions behind it is that there’s this hint of melancholy behind some of the celebration a bit, like in “Cheers to Life” or “Human” It’s not just a call to celebrate by getting trashed and passing out.
Part of its creation—the people behind soca, like Ras Shorty I, he was trying to change his life. And there have been some songs in recent times talking about “wining by myself” and “I don’t need anybody, and if you see me for carnival, man, don’t go bother me, I’m just drinking my rum.” I’ve tried since 2005 to write more soca songs about personal feelings and emotions. Songs like “We Not Giving Up” with Doug E. Fresh, about me really wanting to give up but seeing the kids every day not giving up. Sometimes you would get this sadness coming out because there are times—and I’m one who knows this—where carnival you’ll be in the middle of a million people in the street.
So it seems like that’s actually led to renewed success for you, because the last few years, at least to me, seems like they’ve been getting bigger and bigger for you—the Major Lazer stuff, for instance.
A lot of it was that the theory of less is more. Machel Montano HD: clearer picture, slim it down. We’re not just searching for hit songs. You’re leaving the old city behind to go to the new city. You have to build the bridge, you have to cross it, and then you have to take people from the old city into the new city.
I’ve seen interviews you’ve given where you talk about the global sound. Is that what you want? Or to be a pop star?
The vision is not necessarily to be a pop star, because I had many visions of that life. It’s not the prettiest life. You might slip a couple of lines, you know, get a couple of gifts, see a couple of pretty interesting, awesome things. But the feeling I’m looking for is more closed-eye, on a stage, with the right sound, of a beat, that’s making me dance a certain way, that I don’t have really open my eyes.
You talk about the Bieber song and these soca-influenced things you hear on the radio these days. Does it matter to you that people know they’re listening to soca, or are you happy for them to get the soca feeling even if they don’t know it’s soca?
Well, it would be great for them to all know and know it as that. We could do more on both sides. Which is why I try to do as much as I could on my side. I keep calling it soca. There were times when it would get looks, like “Hot Hot Hot,” and “Who Let the Dogs Out,” and “Tempted to Touch,” but it would never last long enough to be the soca gold rush coming here, this is the soca river flowing here right now. We have to get there.
Do you dread carnival season coming? Is it ever too much?
That voice is always there. There’s always the voice going “Ahhhh, it’s coming.” You hear that voice around September—[phone rings] gimme one second. Yes, mother? How are you? I’m in an interview. What’s up? OK, cool, thanks. Bye. I answer whenever she calls me, my mom. Where were we?
Carnival time—do you dread it? What is your average carnival day?
I’m always realizing just the dread of it will put me in such good shape. I’ll lose 35 pounds in a month, two months going into the carnival, the top shape of my life. I’ll be going to the gym at 2:30 every morning. I’ll usually get sometimes two hours’ sleep a day, maybe three if lucky. It is a day of rehearsal and timelines and deadlines. It’s tough, it’s not an easy situation because there are so many shows. I’ll do 50 shows in two months. And I will master the show on probably number 46. On the 46th show, I’ll be happy. Then I’ll get like four shows the way I want it to be—flying, that energy. And sometimes I want to see these shows happening not in the night, not in the fetus, not where it’s just about alcohol, food, bar, toilets. I want it to be somewhere where it’s about community, about the trees, about the sea, about our relationship—I just want the shift that I dream of. But it’s not something you can just go over there and see it and take people there.
What’s your favorite carnival memory?
Oh wow. Probably winning Trinidad Road March with a song called “Jumbie.” This was probably in ’06, ’07. They judge the Road March competition by the song that gets played the most during carnival on the road crossing the stage. It’s always about writing a song to lift people’s spirits. To gain the joy of all the people. To win over all the hearts. We were in the streets during carnival time, and the song would play hundreds of times. People would come up to you, they’re going in, out, into each other’s spirit, kissing each other. It’s almost like fencing, like swordplay, this thing, like souls playing with each other. I’ll never forget that year. You could walk into any store, and they’d give you whatever you want for free. Food, drinks, whatever. It was so funny when you’re that present, that omnipresent. The most amount of people in the country know you at that one time. It’s a happy feeling. Everybody’s hand would be up in the air. You would see them in exult, in Excelsis Deo.
Machel Montano Coachella
The veteran calypsonian, who is making waves internationally took the 2019 Coachella stage on Friday, with an outstanding and entertaining performance in true Caribbean style.
“Now I am the queen of Coachella and the Queen is from Trinidad and Tobago,” Calypso Rose declared during one of her performances.
The 78-year-old Trinbagonian made history as the music festival’s oldest performer and has been featured in several international news publications for her Coachella performances.
She wowed the crowd yet again on Friday as she performed hit after hit and even brought Nailah Blackman and Machel Montano on the stage to perform with her.
In an Instagram post, Nailah said it was an honor to perform with the veteran singer.
“What a great honor it is to be performing with @calypsorosediva at @coachella. What a great inspiration she has been to me on my musical journey,” she said.