KING OF THE ROAD!

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Machel Mon­tano has se­cured his place in the record books as the undis­put­ed King of the Road in T&T Car­ni­val, af­ter cop­ping his record 12th Road March ti­tle yes­ter­day.

The re­sult of the Road march race was an­nounced by Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) pres­i­dent Ains­ley King at the VIP lounge of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­na, Port-of-Spain.

King re­vealed that across the judg­ing points, Mon­tano’s En­core was played 171 times, ahead of Aaron “Voice” St Louis’ Cyah Be­have, which was played 127 times. Ian “Bun­ji” Gar­lin’s Still a Road Man was third with 97 plays.

The win pushed Mon­tano ahead of the leg­endary Ald­wyn “Lord Kitch­en­er” Roberts, a record the “Grand Mas­ter of Ca­lyp­so” held for 50 years.

In a so­cial me­dia post yes­ter­day, Mon­tano com­pared the tri­umph to the spark of his first win near­ly three decades ago.

“I am be­yond words, and the feel­ing is on­ly com­pa­ra­ble to my first win in 1997,” Mon­tano stat­ed.

He char­ac­ter­ized the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son as “eu­phor­ic,” not­ing that the spir­it of the fes­ti­val “rode on the wings of the mu­sic.”

He salut­ed Voice and Bun­ji Gar­lin.

“I ex­tend my con­grat­u­la­tions and grat­i­tude for a most chal­leng­ing race. All great songs and valiant ef­forts to reach the fin­ish line!”

While the win ce­ments Mon­tano’s lega­cy in the his­to­ry books, the artiste re­mained fo­cused on what this mile­stone means for the fu­ture of the in­dus­try. Ad­dress­ing the youth, he urged them to use his jour­ney as a blue­print for their own suc­cess.

“I hope it will be an in­spi­ra­tion to all, es­pe­cial­ly to the up­com­ing young men and women in our in­dus­try!!! Keep dream­ing and set­ting goals while work­ing hard, be­ing de­ter­mined and ded­i­cat­ed.”

Mon­tano al­so is­sued a heart­felt thank you to the “mas­quer­aders, DJs, pro­duc­ers, and pro­mo teams” who pow­ered the sea­son, as well as a ded­i­cat­ed nod to his fam­i­ly and in­ner cir­cle for their un­wa­ver­ing sup­port.

Speak­ing with the me­dia af­ter the an­nounce­ment, King con­grat­u­lat­ed Mon­tano for achiev­ing what he de­scribed as leg­endary sta­tus.

“Lord Kitch­en­er is a great man, and to go be­yond and break a record, it has to be a great feel­ing for Machel Mon­tano, and I take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­grat­u­late him at this time. I mean, he was a leg­end, but he is now a greater leg­end be­cause of his achieve­ment.”

Voice thanks fans

Aaron “Voice” St Louis al­so ex­pressed heart­felt grat­i­tude to his fans yes­ter­day.

In a so­cial me­dia post, St Louis said, “What a sea­son it’s been! My heart is full. To every­one who sup­port­ed my mu­sic, thank you from the bot­tom of my heart. The love this year was un­matched. In such a short sea­son, we ex­pe­ri­enced more growth than ever be­fore.”

He al­so ac­knowl­edged the role of his fam­i­ly, team, and broad­er sup­port sys­tem in his suc­cess, call­ing them “my strength and steady foun­da­tion when I need­ed it most.”

St Louis said he was now look­ing for­ward to tak­ing the song be­yond the lo­cal shores, “Trinidad and To­ba­go, thank you for mak­ing Cyah Be­have what it is now. The en­er­gy and re­sponse were be­yond any­thing I could’ve imag­ined.”

He said as he pre­pares to take the show on the road, he was car­ry­ing his sup­port­ers with him “every step of the way.”

“I love you!” he said.

For Bun­ji Gar­lin, the sea­son wasn’t about the num­ber of plays or tro­phies but the peo­ple. Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Gar­lin said, “The big­ger thing for me, I even­tu­al­ly gave in­to the fans’ re­quest to reg­is­ter the song and they get their song to jump up with and cross road with and what­ev­er they de­cid­ed to do with it. They are hap­py and I am hap­py for them, so I am hap­py in to­tal­i­ty.”

Re­flect­ing on the 2026 sea­son, Gar­lin not­ed that the suc­cess of the fes­ti­val was nev­er a guar­an­tee. Not­ing that glob­al ten­sions and eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ties had many won­der­ing if the “Moth­er of all Car­ni­vals” would reach its usu­al heights, he said, “We end­ed up with a beau­ti­ful 2026 Car­ni­val.”

He cred­it­ed the coun­try’s cul­tur­al re­silience for what he de­scribed as “one of the best end­ings of a Car­ni­val sea­son” in re­cent mem­o­ry.

When asked if he had a spe­cif­ic mes­sage for Mon­tano, Gar­lin said, “He have his own mes­sage. At the end of the day, these are the things we all set out to do and to see it through, yeah.”

PM & Op­po­si­tion Leader ex­tend con­grat­u­la­tions to the win­ners

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Mon­tano yes­ter­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the vic­to­ry as a mon­u­men­tal achieve­ment that ce­ments his place among the cul­tur­al greats. She praised Mon­tano’s years of hard work, dis­ci­pline and com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence, not­ing that his con­tin­ued men­tor­ship of young tal­ent helps keep T&T’s cul­ture vi­brant and thriv­ing.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to Voice and Bun­ji Gar­lin, com­mend­ing all three artistes for en­er­gis­ing the na­tion and show­cas­ing world-class Trin­bag­on­ian tal­ent.

Beck­les not­ed that Mon­tano’s “re­mark­able con­sis­ten­cy, un­matched en­er­gy and de­vo­tion to his craft con­tin­ue to de­fine Car­ni­val, so­lid­i­fy­ing his place as one of the great­est so­ca artistes of all time.” She al­so com­mend­ed Voice and Bun­ji Gar­lin for their “tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tion this sea­son.”

Machel’s Road March hits

Year*Ti­tle*Col­lab­o­ra­tion

2026: En­core

2025: Pardy

2019: Famalay*Skin­ny Fab­u­lous/Bun­ji Gar­lin

2018: So­ca King­dom*Su­perblue

2016: Wait­ing On The stage*Bad­john Re­pub­lic

2015: Like Ah boss

2014: Min­istry Of Road

2012: Pump Your Flag

2011: Ad­van­tage

2007: Jumbie

2006: Band Of The Year*Patrice Roberts

1997: Big Truck*Xtatik