So­ca star Machel Mon­tano has apol­o­gised to rap­per, singer and song­writer Nic­ki Mi­naj for what he deems “a mis­take mis­un­der­stand­ing on his part” for com­ments made at the Stink N Dut­ty fete.

He ex­plained in a video post­ed on so­cial me­dia, “In the fete, I was just com­pelled to sing the Good Spir­it song and as soon as I start­ed to sing the Good Spir­it song, it start­ed to res­onate deep with­in me es­pe­cial­ly when I said the line “don’t fight me down” – the re­sponse from the au­di­ence was so over­whelm­ing that I felt the joy of the full blown crew who had been writ­ing these songs for me for so many years and that song be­ing the feel­ing of sup­port for a young up­com­ing artiste.”

Mon­tano says “it didn’t come out the way it was sup­posed to come out.” For fans and Mi­naj alike, it ap­peared Mon­tano was ac­cus­ing her and Trinidad Kil­la of fight­ing him down.

In­stead, he says he was try­ing to tell Mi­naj to tell Trinidad Kil­la “to stop fight­ing me down.”

Mi­naj took to so­cial me­dia on Sat­ur­day in an ex­plic­it video ask­ing what she did and threat­ing to curse Mon­tano.

How­ev­er, Mon­tano sought to clear up his state­ments in the five-minute-long video. He said in no way he wants Mi­naj to feel he doesn’t re­spect and ho­n­our her. “I re­al­ly love Nic­ki Mi­naj. I re­al­ly look up to her as an artiste and let me make it ab­solute­ly clear, she has nev­er done any­thing to fight me down.”

Lat­er in the video, he said, “It was a mis­un­der­stand­ing – a mis­take on my part – and I’m a big man and I will say that. Nicky, you know I re­spect you and you know I love you and I did not try to jump out there and at­tack you and I didn’t want any of your fans or you to feel that you have ever done any­thing to fight me down. You did the op­po­site. You al­ways lift me up.”

Mon­tano says this is a time where both artistes need to make a bridge with their mu­sic. He called for a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort be­tween him­self, Mi­naj and Trinidad Kil­la.

In 2023, Mon­tano and Mi­naj col­lab­o­rat­ed on a song ti­tled Shake The Place. They al­so spent car­ni­val with each in Trinidad in 2021.

He ad­mit­ted while de­liv­er­ing the state­ments on stage, he was very emo­tion­al and Trinidad Kil­la said some things about him “that felt like a fight.”

He said it’s some­thing that he and Mi­naj had talked about and she en­sured that Trinidad KIl­la apol­o­gised to him. “I am say­ing for­give me. I am not per­fect. In that mo­ment, I was a lit­tle hot and I didn’t want it to sound to Nic­ki or her fans that she was the one fight­ing me down be­cause I did feel like I got a lit­tle fight from Kil­la and I want Kil­la to know it was nev­er me. I love Kil­la songs. I’ve been singing it every night on stage.”

Mon­tano says he has al­ways sup­port­ed Trinidad Kil­la’s mu­si­cal ca­reer and he would nev­er fight down young artistes.

He al­so an­nounced that to­day he will be launch­ing a song pro­gramme “to big up all the youths of this coun­try and of this re­gion.”