Rashan­da Mc Ken­na

So­ca Su­per­star Machel Mon­tano has chal­lenged his fel­low so­ca artistes to rise to the oc­ca­sion and take his place. Mon­tano was re­spond­ing to com­ments raised about his hat-trick win, re­fer­ring to those who felt he did not de­serve the triple crown. "I would ad­vise them not to run from com­pe­ti­tion. Don't hide away. Don't shy away. Rise to the oc­ca­sion be­cause through that, we would find some­body who would be so tri­umphant, that they would be cel­e­brat­ed for beat­ing Machel Mon­tano."

He said the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple who un­der­stand what suc­cess is would not have time to write ar­ti­cles and make com­ments that crit­i­cise ex­cel­lence. "I will be there for a while, peo­ple who are talk­ing bad about Machel are re­al­ly say­ing, 'Machel you have done it.'" He lament­ed that no­body com­plained when Su­perBlue, Bun­ji Gar­lin and Fay Ann Lyons won the So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion mul­ti­ple times. No­body asked 'why these peo­ple,' he said, so how come they are ask­ing 'why Machel?'

He asked, "Why does every­one want Machel to step down af­ter win­ning a triple crown? This was no easy chal­lenge for me." He in­sist­ed no one was go­ing tell him to di­al it down or be mediocre. Mon­tano al­so in­di­cat­ed that he writes many of his songs de­spite pop­u­lar be­lief that he is sim­ply a "so­ca song singer." He said, al­though he con­tributes a lot of writ­ing to his songs, he is not aim­ing to be the best song writer.

He named Tor­ro Tor­ro, One more time, Wa­ter Flow­ing as songs he him­self penned. "Every time Ker­nal brings a song, he and I would sit and fin­ish it. I put in what should hap­pen and how it should hap­pen. I di­rect the whole sym­pho­ny. I may not play the vi­o­lins, but I di­rect how they should be play­ing." Mon­tano said he works with sev­er­al young writ­ers, not on­ly to his per­son­al ben­e­fit but for the up­lift­ment of the young writ­ers who will gain recog­ni­tion as a re­sult of their as­so­ci­a­tion with him.

The star at­trib­uted his suc­cess to hard work and ac­knowl­edges that he draws a lot of en­er­gy from peo­ple, which he says "is both a bless­ing and a curse." Yet he urges artistes to chal­lenge his po­si­tion, stat­ing: "In life, every­thing that is built up, breaks down. Every king los­es his cas­tle and every­thing that is born, dies. I don't un­der­stand why they don't see that if they put in the work, they can at­tain what I have achieved."

He was proud of so many oth­er artistes this year. "The qual­i­ty of songs, the acts and props of the mu­sic has risen to a new lev­el." Ker­wyn Du Bois, Na­dia Bat­son with her own band and Kees-all did ex­cep­tion­al­ly well, he said. He said there is con­sid­er­able tal­ent that ex­ists with him, but in the mean­time, "I am not go­ing any­where. I am go­ing to al­ways do my best, and if they think it was best this year, next yet it will be even bet­ter."