KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Michael “Tano” Mon­tano’s Car­ni­val 2025 re­leas­es have been heat­ing up the air­waves. The mega-hit Co­coa Tea by Kes is at the top of the list with his oth­er re­leas­es, En­er­gy andmHigh­er Pow­er by Mi­cal Te­ja, One Piece by GBM Nu­tron, as well as Machel Mon­tano and Davi­do’s Fling it Up, all cre­at­ing mo­men­tum.

The “Hit­mak­er,” as he is called by many in the so­ca mu­sic in­dus­try, Tano al­so had a very suc­cess­ful 2024, with re­leas­es like DNA and Run­away by Mi­cal Te­ja, Ban­ga and Mir­a­cle by Kes, Tack Back, a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Kes and him, and last but not least, the 2024 Ca­lyp­so Monarch Machel Mon­tano’s Soul of Ca­lyp­so.

“Def­i­nite­ly it is an ho­n­our for some­one to give me that ti­tle,” he said. “It is a very hum­bling feel­ing, to be hon­est.”

On Jan­u­ary 3, Tano re­leased the in­fec­tious He­roes Rid­dim fea­tur­ing artistes like Coutain, GBM Nu­tron, and Kes, with Coutain’s Jam­Town re­ceiv­ing rave re­views.

“All the songs have got­ten great feed­back so far and feel like they all have some­thing to of­fer,” he said. “What’s ex­cit­ing about Coutain is that his voice is new to the space, and I’m ex­cit­ed to see where we can take his song as well as the oth­ers.”

In 2022, the pro­duc­er re­leased the High Street Rid­dim, which fea­tured Kes, Patrice Roberts, Er­phaan Alves, Preedy, and Mi­cal Te­ja.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, pro­duc­tion was not Tano’s ini­tial ca­reer path. He dropped out of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Guelph in Cana­da dur­ing his third year of a four-year eco­nom­ics pro­gramme in 2011 to be­come a so­ca artiste.

“I was re­al­ly try­ing to be an artiste, and through that, I learnt to pro­duce,” he said. “I want­ed to learn to do every­thing on my own. Through that, I fell in love with pro­duc­tion. That is tru­ly where my heart is, just the cre­ative process in the stu­dio.” Putting in the long hours and com­bin­ing them with raw tal­ent and pas­sion, Tano has been con­tin­u­ous­ly putting a smile on the faces of lis­ten­ers, both young and not-so-young.

“As a pro­duc­er, you have a very big role in cre­at­ing a sound for an en­tire space or an in­dus­try,” he said. “I take that very se­ri­ous­ly. I take a lot of time and ef­fort in the song. It is def­i­nite­ly a time-con­sum­ing thing, but it is worth it in the end.”

Tano al­so boasts of work­ing with Niger­ian afrobeat star Re­ma, Ja­maican pro­duc­er Rvss­ian, Ja­maican dance­hall artiste Shenseea, as well as Latin artistes Myke Tow­ers and Blessd.

His mu­sic was al­so fea­tured in the 2021 FI­FA video game sound­track.

Tano cur­rent­ly has 13 songs on the Ap­ple Mu­sic Top 200 in T&T. Among these 13 tracks, 12 are sin­gles; Jub Jub is from the 2022 High Street Rid­dim.