Machel Montano has done the double.
The thousands of stamping feet that took Advantage on all the stages over the two-day jump-up secured a landslide win for Machel.
Advantage, which earned him the Power soca title last week Friday, totaled 410 plays. Other scores have not yet been confirmed, but reports are that Benjai came second with Trini, and Iwer George third with Come To Meh.
Speaking to the Trinidad Express at the Queen’s Park Savannah on Carnival Tuesday, Machel said he did not expect Advantage to become as popular as it did.
“I feel this one was more like a gift; I was not expecting to get Road March….I said ‘Kernel (Roberts), if ah coming back, I must come back strong’, but I did not expect it to this intense,” he said.
The Road March champ said he had no regrets about his winning Power Soca Monarch performance, after which he was criticized for comments he made against some of the other competing artistes.
“I have no regrets about what I say and what I say is the truth, and who don’t like it could lie down next to it. I have been here as a child when nobody liked soca; everybody liked hip hop and reggae and I open the gates, so I consider myself to be like an elder to them or like a guardian to them; it is just sometimes, the guardian have to out the belt and share some licks,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Trinidad’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the country received a $1 billion boost as a result of Government’s investment in Carnival, and that it had enjoyed tremendous economic benefit.
“We have gotten economic benefit to the hotels, the services, transport, food, clothing, in every arena. I would want to say more than one billion dollars have come back into the country, and there have been so many foreigners back as well….so we look forward from this to Carnival in Tobago, in October,” she told the Express.
Talks are currently under way with the Tobago House of Assembly to host a Carnival there later this year.
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