King of Soca launched in Tobago

ELIZABETH MONTANO still has the diaper her son Machel wore in 1986 when he sang Too Young to Soca for the finals of the National Calypso Monarch competition in the Dimanche Gras show at the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain.

The diaper and several other outfits he wore in videos and live performances over the years are neatly tucked away in a room at her home – a telling reminder of the journey the soca superstar has taken during his phenomenal 42-year career.

Montano spoke about the room and its significance on November 30 at the Tobago launch of her book King of Soca – A biography of Machel Montano, at the Scarborough Library.

Montano also said she is willing to be a part of the MILAT initiative.

Responding to the Ministry of Education’s plan to enrol expelled students in the programme, she said she had no problem discussing the issue with Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby Dolly.

“I want to tell her that I will like to do a reading for them, and again, I want to stress the idea of values. I want to tell them that poverty should not be an excuse and how important education is.

“It is because of education I am where I am and because of education is where Machel is, and you don’t need any money to be educated, really, and I would like to do that.”

She said the only thing she has to pray for is health and strength.

“I am 73, so, I eh no spring chicken. I want to choose communities, and of course Tobago is part of us, so Tobago will be included.”

The book, which she started writing in Toco during the covid19 pandemic in 2020, is filled with old family photos, images of newspaper clippings and other memorabilia chronicling the various phases Machel went through to attain success as an entertainer, producer, engineer and businessman.

Addressing an audience, which included THA Deputy Chief Secretary Dr Faith BYisrael; technical adviser, Division of Tourism, Culture, Antiquities and Transportation Dr Charleston Thomas; and CEO of the Tobago Festivals Commission John Arnold, Montano was emotional as she spoke about the highs and lows of her son’s stellar career.

She regarded him as a miracle child.

Saying Machel celebrated his 49th birthday on November 24, Montano recalled the harrowing ordeal she experienced when she gave birth to him in 1974, some three weeks before he was due.

“I was expecting Machel on December 16. But for some reason, three weeks before. I started to haemorrhage.”

Fearing the worst, Montano said her husband Winston took her to Community Hospital in Cocorite around 10.30 am. Her gynaecologist did not find a heartbeat and told her the baby would be stillborn.

Montano said she needed two pints of blood, one of which her husband supplied. She got the second pint about six hours later, around 5.30 pm.

She pleaded with the doctor to do out a C-section but he refused to cut her to take what he said was a dead baby.

After getting the second pint of blood, Montano recalled she felt a “tingling in my passage.”

He said even though that was the case, the baby was still dead because there was no heartbeat.

Montano said the doctor urged her to “force” to have the baby, even though she had not experienced any pain and contractions.

Heeding his advice, Montano said she pushed with everything in her, but the baby’s head stuck at first.

“The baby came out, not a tear, not a movement, nothing.”

After a few seconds, Montano said, her doctor poured ice water on the baby’s heart to elicit a response. He then started to pump oxygen, extracted some mucus and slapped the baby.

Although the baby gave “a little cry” at first, Montano said the doctor felt it was not enough.

“He did the process all over again – more ice water, more pumping of oxygen and more removal of mucus – and then the slapping started again. This time he was crying and he turned to me and he said, ‘You have a boy, and he will not be sick one day.’”

But the drama did not end there.

She said when the nurses brought the child back to her after taking him to the incubator, it was the wrong child.

“They bring an (East) Indian baby with ‘Montano tag.’ I said, ‘Doctor, allyuh want my husband put me out.’”

As it turned out, Machel and another baby were born at the same time and when the nurses were bathing them the tags got exchanged.

“Luckily for me, one was African and the other East Indian, so they could tell the difference.”

Montano later discovered the mother was a good friend of hers and her husband from their days at Mausica Teachers’ College.

She said she never told Machel about the trials she encountered during his birth until 1999. At that time, he told her he was tired of all the responsibility that came with his burgeoning stardom.

“That was when I said to him, ‘You are here for a purpose.’

“After this, he knew for himself that he had a purpose, so that everything he did, he did it with a purpose, specifically for his country, his people and his music.”

Apart from his Too Young to Soca years, Montano said King of Soca also explores Machel’s “winer boy,” HD and Monk Monte phases.

She said the “Monk Monte” phase began in 2015, at a time when Machel was “gaining new knowledge and becoming more spiritual.”

Monk was an acronym for Movement of New Knowledge. Four years later, Machel changed it to Movement of Now Knowing.

“In 2019, he said to me that knowledge is never new. The knowledge is always there, but is when you become aware of that knowledge. So he changed it to Movement of Now Knowing – the time when you become conscious of that information.”

Montano, who describes herself as the “ultimate insider” (Machel’s confidante), told the audience his success was hard-fought.

“You will see that through the years, it has never been a straight and smooth road. With all of us, we have our ups and downs.

“But along the way one of the things that you will have observed is that Machel is very resilient. So when we fail, or when things look down, we always rise up, and rise up stronger together.”

Montano, who relinquished her position as Machel’s manager in 2014, recalled her son’s talent was discovered when he was five, in their Siparia home.

She said Machel would often watch the Aunty Kay talent show on television and mimic what he saw.

“He will be Aunty Kay. He will be the engineer. He will be the singer and he will be the judge, and his poor brother (Marcus) will play the guitar. He will tape it and he will bring it to us to listen, all at the age of five.”

Montano said she told her husband Machel had a good voice, and they later sent him to be trained.

“Eventually, he became an entertainer, and he is also, by profession, having studied...an engineer and a producer.

“So all that taping he was doing at five, eventually it became part of his career and also what contributed to the excellence, because he knew what to listen to and what is going to sound good.”