Reign­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch, Machel Mon­tano is sched­uled to re­ceive the keys to the Florid­i­an city of Lauder­hill on Fri­day evening, as the Mi­a­mi Broward One Car­ni­val Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion takes place at the Cen­tral Broward Re­gion­al Park in Lauder­hill. No stranger to the Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties, Mon­tano has served in var­i­ous ca­pac­i­ties through­out the evo­lu­tion of the largest Caribbean Car­ni­val in the USA, which is cel­e­brat­ing its 40th an­niver­sary this year. 

Hav­ing head­lined the Grand Pa­rade and Con­cert, per­formed at var­i­ous fetes, de­liv­ered keynote ad­dress­es and even served as a Grand Mar­shall be­fore, Mon­tano will al­so re­ceive the key to City of Mi­a­mi and Dis­tin­guished Vis­i­tor Procla­ma­tion from Mi­a­mi-Dade Coun­ty on Sun­day dur­ing the Grand Pa­rade and Con­cert main en­ter­tain­ment stage to be held at the Mi­a­mi-Dade Fair­grounds in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da.

Fre­quent col­lab­o­ra­tor, joint Road March Win­ner and So­ca Queen, Patrice Roberts and the A-Team Band are billed to head­line the Pa­rade Day Con­cert on Sun­day, along­side an en­gag­ing cast of lo­cal, re­gion­al and US-baed en­ter­tain­ers, in­clud­ing: St Lu­cian singer, Ted­dyson John; NY-res­i­dent, De­von "Lyrikal" Mar­tin; VI-based, St Kitts-na­tive Den­nis "Pumpa" Liburd; Mi­a­mi-based Tri­ni/Hait­ian singer, Ja­son "Sizwe C" Collins and many oth­ers. 

Roberts, who re­cent­ly re­leased a new sin­gle en­ti­tled, "Kit­ty Cat" ex­pressed her ela­tion and en­thu­si­asm for the Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence. She said:

"I al­ways look for­ward to Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val as it has been a con­sis­tent part of my ca­reer. Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val clos­es out the Car­ni­val cir­cuit for many, but it al­so re­sets it for many of us too. I ap­pre­ci­ate the ef­forts of the Car­ni­val com­mit­tee and all the pro­mot­ers, or­ga­niz­ers, mas bands etc that con­tin­ue to keep the Car­ni­val alive af­ter 40 years and look for­ward to many more..."

Al­ready mak­ing waves with their lat­est col­lab­o­ra­tive re­lease en­ti­tled, "Play Mas", Ted­dyson John and "Lyrikal" both braved the in­clement weath­er and are look­ing for­ward to the "Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val" ac­tion tak­ing place over the week­end. The pair would have per­formed their new song last night at Lyrikal's "Hap­py Place" wel­come event on South Beach and "Fes­ti­val Ted­dy" (as he's be­ing dubbed of late) is en­thu­si­as­tic about per­form­ing again on the main en­ter­tain­ment stage at the Pa­rade Day Con­cert. He told The Guardian:

"Mi­a­mi is the last big one be­fore you go to Trinidad you know, so every­body comes down or up for that one. Um, and it's dif­fer­ent too be­cause of how huge Flori­da is - there are sooo many par­ties and dif­fer­ent events hap­pen­ing lead­ing up to the of­fi­cial Car­ni­val stuff. So it's a time when all the DJs, the artistes, man­agers, dancers, every­body comes to­geth­er to rep­re­sent their var­i­ous is­lands and to make sure the peo­ple have a great time - it's that kind of vibe, you know? 

"Mi­a­mi is a place where I've been com­ing for years and it's al­ways dif­fer­ent and spe­cial. The events and pro­mot­ers are al­ways evolv­ing and in­tro­duc­ing new tech­nol­o­gy and new con­cepts, the peo­ple are fash­ion-for­ward and come out look­ing stun­ning in the lat­est styles and this year, I get to per­form at the main event for the car­ni­val, so it's a beau­ti­ful feel­ing to rep­re­sent St Lu­cia, you know. I'm re­al­ly ex­cit­ed to be here, es­pe­cial­ly in the wake of the hur­ri­cane that could have wreaked hav­oc and we do send prayers to all those ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed, but we al­so want to - and HAVE TO - cel­e­brate the gift of life and the joy of mu­sic, friend­ship, com­mu­ni­ty and Caribbean cul­ture as well."

Stay tuned for more Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val cov­er­age over the week­end, down­load The Guardian App to get the lat­est im­ages and re­ports and fol­low @over­timett on IG for ex­clu­sive be­hind-the-scenes con­tent.