KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

“We reached the hos­pi­tal, where the doc­tor checked for the heart­beat—but none was found. ‘The ba­by would be still­born,’ he in­formed us.”

This pore-rais­ing ex­cerpt is from the chap­ter A Mir­a­cle Birth in Eliz­a­beth “La­dy” Mon­tano’s de­but pub­li­ca­tion King of So­ca— the bi­og­ra­phy of so­ca king Machel Mon­tano.

King of So­ca was launched on Tues­day evening at GM­Labs lo­cat­ed at Guardian Me­dia Build­ing on St Vin­cent Street in Port-of-Spain.

The stu­dio was trans­formed by dec­o­ra­tor Petal Gar­cia, with a cu­rat­ed ex­hi­bi­tion by Dr Kwynne John­son of se­lect­ed ma­te­r­i­al from the archives col­lect­ed by La­dy which traced the so­ca king’s 40-year jour­ney.

Broad­cast live on CNC3 and streamed on the Machel Mon­tano YouTube chan­nel, the book launch took the form of not on­ly an en­ter­tain­ing but in­for­ma­tive live show pro­duced by NH Pro­duc­tions TT and GM­Labs.

Host­ed by Chief Di­ver­si­ty Of­fi­cer at Face­book Max­ine Williams, the show opened with a dra­mat­ic mono­logue from Pe­ter Min­shall fol­lowed by the play­ing of an in­vo­ca­tion from Mon­ty Mon­tano, which was record­ed back in the 1990s.

Port-of-Spain Mayor Joel Martinez and his wife Marcelle look at the Machel Montano Exhibition that was on display during his book launch on Tuesday at GM labs, St Vincent, Port-of-Spain.

KERWIN PIERRE

The show al­so fea­tured co-host Ar­dene Sir­joo and ac­tress Pene­lope Spencer; along­side some of this coun­try’s top spo­ken word per­form­ers Kyle Her­nan­dez, Der­ron Sandy, Shenique Saun­ders as well as Kee­gan Ma­haraj—all giv­ing in­tense emo­tion­al de­liv­er­ies mak­ing the event a mem­o­rable one.

En­ter­tain­er Farmer Nap­py, who shares a rich his­to­ry with the Mon­tano fam­i­ly, en­ter­tained guests.

The Monk dancers al­so per­formed.

The King him­self, ac­com­pa­nied by vet­er­an per­cus­sion­ist Tam­ba Gwin­di gave an acoustic per­for­mance of some of his great­est hits.

“The Ul­ti­mate In­sid­er” or La­dy as she is fond­ly called, told the live au­di­ence her book is based on her 2018 MPhil dis­ser­ta­tion ti­tled “The mak­ing of Monk Monte: Cre­ativ­i­ty and Com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion in T&T Pop­u­lar Cul­ture”.

Us­ing the pan­dem­ic to her ad­van­tage, La­dy used the time at home to bring her idea to fruition.

“The Ul­ti­mate In­sid­er” re­veals how Machel Mon­tano be­came one of the world’s most pop­u­lar so­ca artistes.

The 308-page book is or­gan­ised in dis­tinct eras: The Ear­ly Years, The Win­er Boi pe­ri­od, The HD pe­ri­od, The Cur­rent pe­ri­od - Monk Monte, Be­yond 40.

In it, she de­tails the sto­ries of the var­i­ous eras and shares the highs and lows of her son’s jour­ney.

Elizabeth “Lady” Montano presents a copy of King of Soca to Trade Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon.

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The ex­ec­u­tive pro­duc­er of the book launch was Xtatik Ltd, with Machel him­self cred­it­ed as cre­ative con­sul­tant, with Tri­ni Good Me­dia and Xcep­tion­al Events Ltd be­ing named as di­rec­tors.

You can se­cure one of the first copies by log­ging on to www.kingof­so­ca.com

The monk dancers

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Port-of-Spain Mayor Joel Martinez, left; Education Minister Nyan Gadsby-Dolly; Machel Montano; Elizabeth “Lady” Montano; Minister of Tourism Randall Mitchell, and Minister of Trade and Industry Paula Gopee-Soon during the launch of The King of Soca at GMLabs, St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain.

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Soca artist Darryl “Farmer Nappy” Henry performs at the King of Soca book launch at GMLabs.

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