Latest / Corie Sheppard Podcast / The Woman Behind Machel Montano: Liz Montano’s Untold Story | CSP

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The Woman Behind Machel Montano: Liz Montano’s Untold Story | CSP · Corie Sheppard Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: When I look at my sons as men, I feel proud.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Same core values we taught them when they were very young.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: I see them manifesting them as men.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: So don't call me a mommaj.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: I am a mother and I'm a manager.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: There is this boy talking about you're gonna be innovative and he make it so that it is more palatable to the international market.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Where'd this little boy get this from?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I used to play netball, a dance for Princess Margaret.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: You have to invest in your development, you have to invest in yourself, you have to invest in your business, you have to be serious.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a joke, it's not the teachers, it's not the church, it's not the community, it's the parents.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: When he's done and going to win the match, not because I need to come up here.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: My business, my business is so intense.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't had I haven't had a vision.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have time for that.
• 1:28
  Corie: Welcome to the Cory Shopper Podcast.
• 1:30
  Corie: Welcome back to everybody who's been listening.
• 1:31
  Corie: Thank you for everybody who is tuning in.
• 1:33
  Corie: Today we have with us, we've been leading up to this guest, right?
• 1:36
  Corie: You all see us get some slightly popular soccer artists and things here from time to time.
• 1:40
  Corie: But now we have the driving force behind the fellow man they call boy, is what you say?
• 1:45
  Corie: Yes, Lady Montano.
• 1:46
  Corie: I can say lady or Liz Montano.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Lady Montano or Lady Montano, Lady Montano, called me the ultimate insider.
• 1:53
  Corie: The ultimate insider.
• 1:54
  Corie: We have to get some of that inside stories today, though.
• 1:56
  Corie: But why lady?
• 1:57
  Corie: How did lady thing come up?
• 1:58
  Corie: Because I never trying to understand.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you'll realize they call Marshall Boy, right?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: So it's I am Lady, Marshall is boy, my husband is man, and Marcus used to be that guy.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then um the girl in the band used to be girl.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: I see.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I think three out of those stuck are man, boy, and lady.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Gotcha.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: But girl left us, she's now back with us, but working in a different capacity.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: She worked with us in chocolate.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: And but the name came from one of our band members, David Valley, who was the keyboardist.
• 2:35
  Corie: I understand.
• 2:36
  Corie: You don't remember people's names like me, you just call people, so he's a lady, he knows who you're talking to.
• 2:40
  Corie: David, we need names like the Smiths.
• 2:41
  Corie: Like you could be grumpy.
• 2:46
  Corie: I saw you recently.
• 2:47
  Corie: Well, I'm boxing your body time now.
• 2:49
  Corie: I saw you recently in Simi comedy show.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes.
• 2:52
  Corie: You had a good time, you enjoy it very much.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: I always go to I like to support local.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I love to laugh.
• 2:59
  Corie: Yeah.
• 3:00
  Corie: I could see when when you're all talking there, like she on stage and only having a good time.
• 3:05
  Corie: I said, I'm gonna be here and only a good marker.
• 3:07
  Corie: I see the whole family.
• 3:08
  Corie: I see you, Marshall, Rennie, everybody.
• 3:10
  Corie: Only killing all yourself laughing.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Some of my friends were there, and nice and I'm Rennie family.
• 3:16
  Corie: I met some of your friends too in the album launch, Uncle Album Launch.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, which one?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Pamela.
• 3:22
  Corie: I had to call them lady friend now, and I can't remember names too.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I like David and also they are also characters like me.
• 3:30
  Corie: Nice, nice people, nice, nice people.
• 3:32
  Corie: Definitely.
• 3:32
  Corie: It was interesting to see you there front and center at the album launch in the front row in the middle.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: I am always front.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: I told you I'm the ultimate insider, so how could I miss something like that?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: And the boy always looking out for me, you know, no matter what.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: He watching to see my reaction.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: I saw that.
• 3:51
  Corie: I saw it myself because I say, I say, well, they must be to host this thing.
• 3:55
  Corie: You know, I'm hosting that no.
• 3:56
  Corie: And then when I come up, you sit down right in front of us.
• 4:00
  Corie: But the first question I asked him, I was asking him about the amount of albums he has.
• 4:04
  Corie: And the first thing he do is say, Lady, how much albums are?
• 4:06
  Corie: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: All the time, you know.
• 4:07
  Corie: So that ultimate insider thing.
• 4:09
  Corie: I know that uh that was one of the themes behind the King Ahsoka book.
• 4:13
  Corie: How has that been going?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: The book, the sales of the book for the promotion.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I've been traveling a lot, and whenever I go, I sell the book, but more importantly, I give the lesson behind the book.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I think that has been very successful.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, it has touched a lot of people, and in May, I'm going again, this time to Washington.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so I'm going, it's the Mother's Day weekend, and motherhood is part of my journey.
• 4:40
  Corie: Understood, understood.
• 4:42
  Corie: I saw lunches in Jamaica, in Barbados.
• 4:45
  Corie: I saw the book front and center when Marshall was doing Tiny Desk.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
• 4:49
  Corie: It stood out among all them books.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know.
• 4:52
  Corie: I feel proud as a Trinidadian to see, you know, you watch the Tiny Desk all the time, and you're already happy to see Marshall do it.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: But to see the book right there in the middle, it's all about marketing and promotion and strategy.
• 5:03
  Corie: Well, I know you know that for sure.
• 5:05
  Corie: And on top of that, on top of it.
• 5:07
  Corie: So, how was it traveling to do all those launches?
• 5:09
  Corie: You enjoying that process?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, exciting because the thing is, I have been an educator for decades, and um, I always believe in sharing knowledge, and also I take the opportunity not only to share the knowledge, but to teach, you know, to share lessons.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's always very exciting.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's a little strenuous not as young as I used to be.
• 5:36
  Corie: I just get tired when I see it in tax and but um I'm accustomed.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of slow down a little bit now, you know.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, most importantly is that I don't have to manage my shallagate in the right hands.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: So therefore, I have more time to do the things that are close to my heart, like you know, that have an educational background and that kind of thing.
• 6:00
  Corie: Yeah, that's why I was wondering if I'll just see how the launch because I wondered when I saw that you step aside as management if you're still so involved.
• 6:06
  Corie: So now it's just mummy role completely.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: I support, you know, and I'm still part of, remember, it's our business, it's a family business.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: The only thing is, um, I was at that time mother and manager, but now I am mother and overseer.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: They call me the drone.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really have to do the things that I used to do then.
• 6:30
  Corie: Start drones in one hour, you know, drone dropping bomb and thing, and it's that kind of drone, or they just overseer.
• 6:34
  Corie: All positive.
• 6:36
  Corie: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 6:37
  Corie: Now, one of the themes I see running through the book is as as a mother, you have two sons that's enormously successful in their own right, two completely different fields.
• 6:44
  Corie: Yeah, but you talk about how that might be a blessing, but the real blessing is the values that you and Monty pass down to them.
• 6:52
  Corie: You can talk about it?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, it's the core values, like I always add again.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: This is why I stress this in my book that most importantly is that foundation that you set.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: I have been a guidance officer, and I know that the child is made from the age of about seven and even before.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: So that the lessons have to be told, have to be taught, and the examples have to be set from really.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: You can't wait until the child is a teenager and then expect miracles.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Some parents would come to me and say, gosh, I do everything.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, but what did you do?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: When it was important, now it might be too late.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, like the values, for example, we believe in for loving your own, right?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: We believe in hard work, sharing, so that you will notice no matter what.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: This has become a part of Marshall, a part of Marcus, that everything they're doing, they involve people.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like Marshall has a lot of collaborations.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: He always, this is from very small.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: He never went anywhere by himself, even if he had to take a guitarist.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like when he went to study recording engineering, we send the keyboarders, we send somebody so that everybody will share in it.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so um, I think that is important.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: And when people ask me the question, oh my, you must be real proud that your son, your big son, is a captain with Caribbean Airlines and your other son is an entertainer.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: I say, yes, I'm proud, but that is not really what it is all about.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: It is that when I look at my sons as men, I feel proud because then I realize that the same core values we taught them when they were very young, I see them manifesting them as men.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what I always repeat that every time because that's what's important, and I think that is what stuck.
• 8:44
  Corie: Yeah, it's slow to me, it's for sure.
• 8:46
  Corie: Because I guess for me, like everybody else would think, you know, I look at my son now.
• 8:50
  Corie: After I see I read the book, I say, Boy, I want if this man could sing but I see a hand, I might see if I could work it out.
• 8:55
  Corie: I say I read the templates, I could make one.
• 8:58
  Corie: But it was never about that for you.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, no, because again, because of my expertise, you always have to look at where your children's interests lie.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And from very early, at the age of five, is when I discovered Michelle, or when we discovered Mashelle.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: I remember Marcus used to take um guitar lessons from Ashford Joseph.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: But he would come home and get Marshall to sing for him because he can play and sing.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: And in doing that, again, Marshall will take.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: I saw some people who know about cassette players, and he will tape it.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: And when he tapes it, Marcus, for example, Marcus will be playing the guitar, he will be singing, Marshall will be taping, Marshall will be, for example, he will do antique.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: I you might remember Antikey, he will be the host, he'll be the judge, he will be um taping, and he will be uh also a contestant, and then he'll bring the tape for us to listen to.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I said to Monty Asw and Monty, wait, Marshall has a good voice, man.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we took him to Ashford Joseph, and Ashford Joseph started to train him, and as he would say to everybody, one thing led to the next.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: But he had that something in him, and it was his interest, and we helped him develop and flourish.
• 10:18
  Corie: But this is something you worked with other parents on before, because uh any parent, I suppose, whatever the field is, you're saying it's important for us to look at what the child almost naturally inclined to do.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, because I tell people that um from small and they feel children are too young to learn, children are looking on and they will learn the negative.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: So you get you have to teach them the positive.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: And when you do that, you also have to set the example.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: You can't be do as I say, but not as I do.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, like that hard work.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: Monty and I work really hard.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: We we work beyond the call of duty.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: For example, Monty was the manager.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: We'll be going, Monty will be taking up all those cases and carrying it in the airport.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: We lived in Separi at the time.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Our hornmen live in Arima.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Monty will leave Separi and go and pick up the hornmen to come to Realsal in Separi and carry in Separi and carry them back to the east.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Some people don't want to do that, they feel that is not their job.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm a manager, I don't do that.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: No, we do everything.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and our children are the same thing.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that example critical.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Critical.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: The examples that you have to set the examples for them to follow, and then you have to teach.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Now, my children were born in the time of black power, right?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: And some of the the values there that we try to set is to love your own, love local, you know, be sharing, be loving.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: Also, work hard, educate yourself, you know, and all these things came about at the time of when we had that consciousness, and I think that worked very well for us.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: And we taught it not only to our children, right, but the children we were in charge of, like nappy.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: We taught them another thing to save.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: It is important to invest in yourself.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: If you get pay, and um that people always say that if you get ten dollars, think you have you got five and you put aside the next five, you know, or you invest it.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that has worked well.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And some of those examples and those lessons were also learned by those who were in our charge.
• 12:37
  Corie: It makes sense, it makes sense.
• 12:38
  Corie: And I suppose it's lessons that you can apply no matter what you want to do in life.
• 12:42
  Corie: It doesn't matter where your career goes.
• 12:43
  Corie: General, general, you know.
• 12:44
  Corie: Yeah.
• 12:45
  Corie: So you were a guidance counselor before you had children?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: I was a teacher.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, I work, well, after I left school, I walked the street to look for a job.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: I got a job in the city hall in Port of Spain, and after that, I work in national housing.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 13:04
  Corie: In Carnage, right?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Still?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: And after that, in 1969, I was 18, and Mousica Teachers College was a college where you didn't have to have experience, right?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: But of course, you had certain qualifications.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I applied and I got through because I always wanted to teach.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: I used to teach children in the neighborhood from small, you know, and so I always wanted to teach.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then I went in 69, and that's when I met my husband.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: But um, we started to date in 70.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, then we got married in 73.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um Marshall was born in 74.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Then in 1976, I went to Jamaica to study.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um we Muna, and I went to do education.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: But so you're studying education there?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, in Mona.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: That was my degree.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then um the and the children stayed in Trinidad with Monty.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then in 1977, the next year, Monty came to do geology.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: I see.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: So he was a geologist.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: That uh teaching in Mona, you can do it, or you were just it wasn't offered in Trinidad.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: So that the government will pay you to go, like they will pay your first airfare and your last airfare because it wasn't offered then.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's now offered, I think, in in Trinidad.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing with geology.
• 14:24
  Corie: I guess too, yeah.
• 14:25
  Corie: Everybody and um, I believe people who did like you had to go Baby the student law, so you were selling the fragmented like some of that.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then when we came back, we went back to Carinage.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: And my sons were going to Mukrapo Boys.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then remember geology is oil field, so that was he had to go south, and then there was a school in South that they had some emotional things going on with the girls, and nobody wanted to go.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I volunteered to go.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: But um, we were living Carinage and traveling every day to South.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: So you leave in the dark and come back in the dark, and then one day, one day, my crapper boys is right next to that cemetery.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: We came back and Marshall was crying.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: He was little.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you came back to pick him up late.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, late, dark, you know, and we say, nah.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: So we put them in the car, carry them south, and we got them into Separatia Boys RC.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Gotcha.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then we were still traveling back and forth.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: And we said, nah, this car work.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then we went south to live.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: We would live in La Romaine, and then um we were renting, and then we bought a house in Saparia.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, so that's it.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's how we ended up in Saparia.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but Marshall's um career and everything started in Sapari.
• 15:48
  Corie: Started in Sapari.
• 15:50
  Corie: So, with the school of the attress girls, they were going there to teach, not to do guidance counselling.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Which school were doing?
• 15:55
  Corie: When you said there were some girls at risk in the school.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, no, after when I came back, I never taught again.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: I see.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because what I did was um a special course at uh degree level for counselling, and they were now starting counseling in Trinidad and Tobago.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I was one of the first people.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: So in 1980, I started as a guidance officer, and I started in Superior, and then I went to this is at what level school primary also?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: No, secondary.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: I went to the um the junior secondary schools and the senior comprehensive.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I started at Superior Junior, and then I was moved to Superior Senior, and then they chose five guidance officers to move around the country, and I was one of them.
• 16:36
  Corie: Yeah, like my wife is a teacher now, and I believe she said, I'm not sure if it's a zone thing, but there's a guidance council attached to every school.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: But it was like that, it was like that, it was like that, not primary school, I can't remember.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: It was that mainly the secondary schools, right?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I know somewhere along the line that changed, you know, because they had guidance officers in school, but then they picked um, I think it was Tony Watkins, Dr.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um Otley, and myself and two other ladies, right?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we were chosen to move around.
• 17:05
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, it's something I'm always curious about people who do that type of work because for me, I'm not sure that I could um excel at something like that.
• 17:14
  Corie: You know, you tell me this sad story, no, I want to cry.
• 17:17
  Corie: It's hard for me to go back to my profession and give the guidance and advice.
• 17:20
  Corie: It's something that you enjoy.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, um, that is important um that you you don't share the emotion.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: For example, you don't sympathize.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: You could empathize, but you don't sympathize.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: So that you may have a child who wants to attempt suicide.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: You can't be crying in front of the child.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: You need to be strong, you understand, and you need to be able to tell them certain things.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: Also, you may have children who do certain things.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: You can't tell them it's wrong.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: You understand?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: You can show them certain things around that.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that was easy for me because I had children.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: I had Michelle who was in the field, I had to teach my other son.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: I had a home to run.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: So therefore, I would be when I'm in school, I didn't want to don't come to the house.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: I will go to you if it's something outside, because I always feel that to be successful, you can remain within your nine to five.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: But I always like to separate roles so that when I'm in the guidance role, I am that.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: When I am a mother, I'm that.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: When I'm a manager, I'm something else.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: This is why I always tell people, don't call me a mommager.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not a mommager, right?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: I am a mother and I'm a manager.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes the public mix it up and they say, Oh, God, look how Marshall treating him, but no, he's my boss.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: When I'm there, he's my boss.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: When we home, I'm the boss.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: And this no, he's a big man, he's another boss.
• 18:49
  Corie: I want you, are you gonna isolate that little part?
• 18:51
  Corie: You say this, so I can send for my mother so she finally understands who is the boss, you know what I mean?
• 18:55
  Corie: I don't know what is happening.
• 18:56
  Corie: But they're always there, especially sons.
• 18:58
  Corie: Of course, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:00
  Corie: But it's interesting to hear you talk about that with guidance counseling.
• 19:02
  Corie: Because when I hear you say that separation, as a father, I'm not sure I have the tools to separate me as a father from me managing my son.
• 19:11
  Corie: Your guidance counseling training, you feel happy with that?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: I was always like that.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: You see, some of the things people ask me, I can't explain because I was like that from small.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I always know how to separate, or it just came naturally.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: So that when I um, although I know that is part of it, that you're supposed to separate your emotions from your professional thing.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: But I was always like that.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so that um it came very easy to me.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, another thing that came easy to me is that it was a difficult thing for the people involved to understand.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: They will say you lock up any room with the child, and they you're not telling me this is either the um the parent or or the teacher, they want to know what it is this child telling me, but I'm not supposed to do that because the child is telling me this in confidence, you know.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: So these are all the things that are part, but it is something that I knew of a child.
• 20:12
  Corie: Yeah, so I don't know.
• 20:14
  Corie: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 20:15
  Corie: Yeah, and it's unique because like um I I found, right?
• 20:18
  Corie: Like people who are highly successful at anything, they have the quirks, right?
• 20:24
  Corie: It's like for instance, uh, David Wares is a highly successful fella.
• 20:27
  Corie: But he talked to me all how, you know.
• 20:28
  Corie: I mean, this might talk to me rough.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I deserve that.
• 20:31
  Corie: I feel as that, you know.
• 20:32
  Corie: I feel as that, but we cut that part out, right?
• 20:35
  Corie: No, no, man, talk to me anyhow.
• 20:37
  Corie: And my first thing is to go inward.
• 20:38
  Corie: From the time you talk to me rough, I want to collapse.
• 20:41
  Corie: I don't like it.
• 20:42
  Corie: You dealt with that for years in terms of your dealing a professional.
• 20:45
  Corie: This is your son, and you had to still go home and have a relationship, which I would think is one of the most important relationships in your life.
• 20:52
  Corie: You don't worry about what it feels like.
• 20:53
  Corie: Because when David talked to me rough, he's not bothered.
• 20:55
  Corie: But when he talks to me rough in public, we go cuss up.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: No, but when if my son talks to me rough in public, he's not talking to me as a mother.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: He's talking to me as his employee, and he I'm his manager.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: And if he wants something and I can't satisfy it, or I did it not the way it's supposed to be done, then you pull me up.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: I have nothing, I don't business with that.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: When we reach home, I know you come in and jump in my bed.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: I know you get enough first thing in the morning to come and talk to me.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: I know every day you will check me to see how I'm doing.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that's important.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: We have two different roles, and I separate it easily.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: Who ain't like it, that's their business, you know.
• 21:38
  Corie: You he seem to make that same separation.
• 21:40
  Corie: So you all both have that church and state separation.
• 21:43
  Corie: Of course, of course.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because he would, you know, he knows when to be son, and he definitely knows when to be the boss.
• 21:50
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:51
  Corie: Well, you might tell the teacher David some of that because the truth is, you're right.
• 21:54
  Corie: Sometimes it is good knee deep pain in line.
• 21:56
  Corie: So I saw every moment it could have been carib short pants parts.
• 22:00
  Corie: Right?
• 22:00
  Corie: This time I just fetten up in front and the fence, right?
• 22:03
  Corie: And them days insomnia starts swinging in.
• 22:05
  Corie: And I always remember being there.
• 22:07
  Corie: And I see it's the first time I saw a set list stick up on Nave Monitor.
• 22:11
  Corie: Marshall and a set list.
• 22:12
  Corie: So now I see what song coming next.
• 22:14
  Corie: I feel like as part of the band.
• 22:15
  Corie: And I remember him must be skipping about 10 songs on the set list.
• 22:20
  Corie: I suppose it's time and whatever it is you're dealing with behind the scenes that we don't know.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: No, also you see, uh, Marshall is very observant.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: And he takes in his environment, he takes in his audience.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you're going down the road, I suppose, and you see something not going the way you want to go, then he will feel it and he will know what to do and where to go.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so this is part of um how he gets his audience.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: He's always connected to them.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: So he knows what they're feeling, he knows what they want, and he knows what they wouldn't want.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: So if you see a going dog and you think, you have to change.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: Some people might just stick to it, or maybe they can't change it because of how the set is set up.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: But with Michelle, he, you know, sometimes you don't know, like you heard him say in one of the interviews, that they plan the set and an hour before they call him to ask him, print, print, because they know him, and he'll say no.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: And all right, he says, Yeah, print.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then when you're reaching the night, he's scratching and doing something else, or he just comes and says, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but that's the way he is.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: So he observes and he takes in, yeah.
• 23:30
  Corie: But the nice time was I see I see you reverse rules and talk to him good rough and tell him Marshall, he can't do that, you can't cut this shit so short.
• 23:36
  Corie: And he listened, that is mommy and son, or that his manager and thing.
• 23:39
  Corie: Once it's on stage, it's my job.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Marshall is a person who likes to consult.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: He takes advice, he likes to hear what is another person's um opinion, although in the end, he has the final say, but he never does anything just so on his own.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and he doesn't expect us to do the same.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: So that we have a very strong team and everybody have their roles, but we will all meet together and it will be a consensus.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Got true.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: So we have been like that.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: And when Monty was management, you know, Marsha will always make the joke, and he does it, as I tell you, you um you set examples.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Monty will bring the flip chart and we will sit down before us, we will meet somebody and we'll be there making the notes, flip charts, and we have it, and and everything was always planned.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we believe in um not just doing good business, but doing smart business.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: And Monty was the leader in that in the in the beginning when he was managing.
• 24:38
  Corie: Understood.
• 24:39
  Corie: Well, let's talk about our business a little bit now.
• 24:40
  Corie: Because when you have a you have a young son, you're seeing a talent on him, you see him do the antique, and you realize something happening here.
• 24:46
  Corie: At that point in time, you all seeing yourselves as just a supporting role to support what he wants to do in life?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, to be to manage him, first of all, because we also wanted to protect him, we wanted to save him from exploitation, we wanted to save him to go in the right path, right?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, therefore, we were there not only as parents but to guide.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, therefore, that role came important to us.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: And both of us were also working and we were professionals, so we had to share, but we wanted to make sure that we were in the forefront.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: But luckily for us, Marshall always knew what he wanted and what he didn't want to do, so that we really just had to support him.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: When people felt that we were pushing him, no, he was controlling the scenes.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like um Marshall will do early interviews, right?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: When I say early at an early age, and Monty and I will be sitting down and wondering, what he's going to say.
• 25:48
  Corie: You're not nervous when he when you go in that.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I have my fingers crossed because I know one he's good for himself.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm wondering how he will answer this.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I have a tape that I have saved, I think, from 1985, when we went to WBLS in in um New York, and they asked him where does he see this music going, you know, and there's this boy talking about he's gonna be innovative and he will do this and he'll make it so that it is more palatable to the um international market.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: Where this little boy get this from?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: You understand?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: And and then he talked earlier about real unity, about unity and uh and love and this.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: And if you look at him over the years and decades, you will see this is how it is, it's never changed.
• 26:36
  Corie: Yeah, you see evidence of it all the time.
• 26:38
  Corie: All the time, yeah.
• 26:40
  Corie: So I remember sitting with Alvin that Alvin teaching Sun Jim Second True.
• 26:44
  Corie: We had to verify his facts.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, he taught me and he taught my sister and he taught Pamela, my very best friend.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: He taught us maths.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, all right.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: So just double checking his information, but we were also family friends because his wife was my sister's best friend, his son um is my sister's um godmon, and um, and then his wife's sister is my god sister, and we grew up okay, okay, okay.
• 27:13
  Corie: So he said that um in terms of how he approached interviewing Marshall, this is many, many years after 1991.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:20
  Corie: Oh, it was 91.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, when he when he did the one with um A levels, when he was in A levels and we were living in Separatia, Marshall was about 16.
• 27:28
  Corie: Right.
• 27:29
  Corie: And he said that he was looking at the image people had of him.
• 27:32
  Corie: You all have been dealing with that since he was four or five years old in terms of putting him into soaker.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I never thought about putting him into soaker.
• 27:40
  Corie: He said only put him in the single, something else.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Teacher taught him this first Ashford Joseph.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then, well, we always giving our children extracurricular activities again.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: The child has to be all wrong, right?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that holistic development is important, you know.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: So he joined the church choir or he joined the school choir.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: But every time somebody says you want to join the choir, and you say okay, when you go in the choir, you want to sing lead, you say okay.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Now, when he go to as what you say, you want to enter um the competition in the um in St.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Patrick, say okay.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Come and you win, and he win and he win, and they start, and then they say, You want to go in town.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: But then I am the one who pushed him with leaving Separat to go Porta Spain to be in that whole national mix.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: And he started with San First, San 12, and under and then he went to junior Calypso Monarch at the age of nine.
• 28:42
  Corie: Right, and that's where you're starting to get some pushback now, right?
• 28:45
  Corie: People saying all they have this little boy singing so you remember the articles, you remember the narrative.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they were pushing back.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: We were we were not getting any pushback.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: You ignore that.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, you don't ignore it, but you make sure that your child is focused and that he knows that he has the support of his parents.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and you let him feel comfortable in himself that he is capable of doing it.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we didn't even have to do that because Marshall always knew, you know, that he I don't know that he could do it.
• 29:19
  Corie: Right.
• 29:19
  Corie: I even saw you say in an interview once you're trying to almost prep him.
• 29:23
  Corie: And he's like, nah, no, I know what I'm gonna say.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that started from small, uh, you know, I always have a story.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: But we live carinas, so we beat in the sea a lot, right?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Dong um nail chagramas behind the alcove.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: So when young Marcus was nine months, and Monty took him out, put on the things on his arms, and he gone out swimming far with the father.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: You come with Marshall, he cried.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: He don't want to go, he don't want to go, he don't want to, he don't want to go.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: One day, he was two years and he just walked in his sea and the boy was swimming.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody taught him.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: We come, we buy him some knives, the two of them to rally bicycle, two wheel bike, two and carinars in the yard.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: He don't want to learn to ride, he don't want to be a markers towing him, up and down towing him.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: He don't want to learn to ride right.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: The next thing, and I look out the window, the boy riding for himself.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: And this is how we he grew up like that.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we come with the letter.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: He the letter was like kind of complicated, four verses, four choruses, each chorus different.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: We say, Mash, he said, he don't want to learn it, he don't.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: So the father and I go into tongue.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: Was the first line, first verse, chorus.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: He said it when we reach in tongue, we say no fingers crossed because we don't know.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the boy delivers everything word for word.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: When they started to say um he wasn't right, he wasn't writing his song, so he's not a calypsoan.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: He's a calypso singer.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: There's a little boy, you know, ten years.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Writing that he's a calypso singer depression.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Yeah, I can't write no song.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: All that time he's doing little things anything, but I can't write no song.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: One morning, three o'clock in the morning, he was 16, um, 1991.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Ah, look, I write my first song.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that was called First in the Party.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that was his second song in the Calypso Monarch.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: And he came to and he was 16.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think it was um Stalin one, Krocrow came second, and Marcel Montano at 16 be the rest of them.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: And he wrote one of his songs.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that those things.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: So he does, yeah.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: So he does everything when he is ready.
• 31:42
  Corie: It's at his time.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: And his time.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he continued like that.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: It makes sense.
• 31:46
  Corie: My true life.
• 31:47
  Corie: It makes sense.
• 31:48
  Corie: Let's talk about that letter now, because that song is a is a heavy song, right?
• 31:52
  Corie: I think any adult could have sung that and do well.
• 31:54
  Corie: Yeah.
• 31:54
  Corie: Because it's an important.
• 31:55
  Corie: I mean, it might be a relevant message today.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you might be.
• 32:00
  Corie: How do you people remember the song, David?
• 32:02
  Corie: Let's follow any footsteps of my teacher.
• 32:04
  Corie: Yeah.
• 32:04
  Corie: Heavy.
• 32:05
  Corie: And you saying he rehearsing it on his own side.
• 32:07
  Corie: He's gonna be good.
• 32:08
  Corie: Or how are you in the stance then watching him execute?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: I was I in the stance, I wouldn't be in the stance.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was right on the stage.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you look too at too young to soaker, go back and look at the foot, um, the footage.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: I am the one pushing him on the stage in the pram.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: Saying, boy, they say you're too young to soaker.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: But again, as I say, when we I when we see him, for the first time and we look in, we say, Oh god, boy, I wonder if he will remember the words.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: And you remember also after that, I didn't worry, but you know, he'll always be nervous.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right and thing, but I had the confidence because one of Marshall's secret is Marshall is extremely bright.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe even a photographic memory, I don't know, because at the age of nine, to remember four verses that all different, four choruses that are all different and get it right, you know, it has to be special.
• 33:01
  Corie: So you wasn't worried when you all decide on that song.
• 33:03
  Corie: Is that a message that you all wanted to send?
• 33:05
  Corie: How did the song come about?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: How did the song?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think um that first song came about through Ashford Joseph, who was his um teacher.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: But then after that, based on that song, they were saying he was too young.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And Monty and I and the two children sat down and we say, We gotta tell them no, you're not too young, you want to do this.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: So the too young to soaker came off of the letter.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that the letter itself came about with things that were going on.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: So, and a lot of changes took place because of the letter.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: For example, one of the things they say teachers getting so much holidays, but yet they still stay in home.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things happened, they stop giving half day and time off for cricket.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, like when they had the Australian test during that time, no half day, no time off.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: And you will see any mirror saying um, because of Marshall's letter.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: That was one of the headlines, you know, and then we had, according to you, a pushback from um the then president of the of Tutor, who at the time supported the calypso monarch, who at the time was Penguin singing soft man, but couldn't support the junior calypso monarch.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and some of these things was you're quarreling with me, that is the teacher, quarreling with me for coming late, but yet you're strolling in late.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: You're wearing your mini skirt and your jeans and jersey, but if I wear that, what will happen?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so um things like that.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Don't don't blame me.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just following the footsteps of my teacher.
• 34:43
  Corie: Yeah, and you see when words on paper is a different thing, but the delivery, I remember seeing them deliver that on the Savannah stage, it must have national impact, especially then with Calypso.
• 34:52
  Corie: It did.
• 34:52
  Corie: So when you have people like Spyro and Kitchener and them fellows on them making statements like they make, you saying you ain't received no pushback, then push back, you you you you just you pay attention to it and move on, just protect yourself.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: But we we move on and we um you see we always have those situations and we always take it as um a lesson or an experience, anything, even to 2026, we still take things as lessons because things are positive.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: You have positive messages coming from positive ways, and you have negative messages that you could learn from, right?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we did all these things, and I think we were able to help Marshall also, you know, to understand that.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that um all the headlines are there, all the headlines are there, and then worse yet now.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think in 1984, after that that um letter, um um Mr.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: Maslin came to Trinidad from New York, quite a superior, searching separate for this little Marshal Montana.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: He he comes and he asked him, we want to go, we want to take him to Madison Square Garden.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: So um Marshall say, okay, he go in.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that is where he had that very first experience with Sparrow, with Kitchener and Shadow.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: And if you look at um um the cover of my book, Um King of Soker, you will see Sparrow, Kitchener, and Shadow lifting Mashell up as though they presenting him to the world as the future king.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that picture was taken at Madison Square Garden in 1984.
• 36:35
  Corie: Yeah, it's such a symbolic image now.
• 36:37
  Corie: When you look back, I mean I guess I don't know what you could see in '84 to see that we will be here now.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I knew, I knew even before, I knew at birth that Michelle will be great.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: I knew at birth the moment that he came into the world.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that is another story.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: In in my book, you will hear about the miracle birth.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: Michelle was born, stillborn.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: Right up from 9 30 the morning when I got to come um the community hospital.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: They said to me, um, my gynecologist no heartbeat and I had no pain.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: So this child is going to be stillborn.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: He was supposed to be born on December 16th.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's November 24th.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we went in there 10 13 and I was hemorrhaging.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they call it preclamps.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: And the doctor said to me, he's not going to make it.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: He's going to be stillborn.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the baby is going to be stillborn.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I said to the doctor, so why don't you cut me to take the baby?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Nah, it don't make sense.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: Cutting for a dead baby.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: This time I just bleeded and nothing.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then my husband had to donate blood.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: We have the same blood type.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: And they brought it at that time, they have magic, you know, we had to test the blood.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: It came to me five something.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: All this time I lined down, and Dr.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: Narayan sing outside here whistling.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Doctor, please do not whistle.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_02: I said, because I know you're whistling for me to feel comfortable.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: Don't whistle.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: Don't whistle.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and then I was even smaller than this.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: So then he came.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, at one time, just as I got the pint of blood from my husband, I just felt a little movement in my passage.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I called him and say, Dr.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: Ruth Nine saying, already baby dead.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: If I say yes, and then they examine me and he said, Okay, we gotta do this now.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: No pain, no pushing, nothing.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I lie down, they say, Come on, come on, Montano, push, push.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: Poor me milton self, I push one, I force, I close my eyes, bam, baby head come out and stick in the passageway.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Nah, Montano, come on, force like if you're constipated, force, and I close my eye and I force, bam, baby come out, lie down, no crying, no movement, no nothing.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then a little time passed, and he was focusing on me.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then I see going and focus on the on the well, the so-called dead infant.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: And he um he starts to throw ice water, he starts to pump out mucus, he started to pump oxygen, and he goes, and then he starts to slap him.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: He comes in this world with licks.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: He starts to slap him.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: The next thing you know, you hear, uh he said, not good enough, not good enough.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: And he repeat the the um the process.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then he um he started to cry.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Good, you had a boy, and he's not going to be sick one day.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the moment then I realized this child born for a purpose, and we named him Marcel Jesus Montano, and the Jesus came from that savior, and we went on.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: I never told him this until 1999.
• 40:10
  Corie: He said so when he was here, he said, going through depression after.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I told him that I said, No, you can't backward.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: I say you're here for a purpose, and this is what it is.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: And he went forward from then.
• 40:21
  Corie: Having to share something like that with him in terms of being stillborn and so on, you had a reason that you had never told him before.
• 40:27
  Corie: No, it just didn't come up.
• 40:28
  Corie: I see.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: It just didn't come up, but I just didn't see the need, you know.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, although there were experiences um of things coming back up, and we had a great relationship with um doctor um with the gynecologist.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it happened so on two occasions, the doctor was living upstairs and myself.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so um he kind of knew about him and thing, but not I think all of this happened after 1999.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but he was young and I didn't really, but I thought that at this time it was necessary for him to know because um in the recent years prior to that, I think he has been having, you know, some little signs of depression and then because of again, according to you, pushback coming, and he was young, right?
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and um a lot of the things that were coming to him is really from people who don't know him, so that it was not true, but then you know when people hear things, one will take it and go and then it becomes true to them, of course, and it's true to the other people, and we get that all the time, yeah.
• 41:38
  Corie: And it's before social media and things and something in the article and the rumor mills used to stick.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we're there long before this we there from 1982.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: Social media came in 2002 or 2020, of course, of course, decades after.
• 41:54
  Corie: So I remember him talking about Monty reactions and seeing him depressed and that kind of thing.
• 41:59
  Corie: For you as a parent, was it like when he went through that?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: No, I was always there.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: You see, I again with my um experience of being a guidance counselor, I knew how to react and I dare to support, you know, and I and look for ways that we can get him out of it.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I was never really unduly worried because I know he had that strong foundation, but then he's only human.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: You understand?
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: And he's young, you know.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: But the I think again the blessing was that he had a very strong support system.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: We were only a call away, a room away, you know, and we were always there, both Monty and I.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I was the more kind of aggressive one, where Monty was the more calm one, and we'll bring out the books and we'll read him this, and you know, yeah.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: But he he had both of us, and then he had Marcus.
• 42:48
  Corie: Yeah, I'd ask about Marcus at that time because by that time he's studying to be a pile of something already.
• 42:52
  Corie: Because next time he didn't.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: He was already flying because um Marcus flew when he left school um and he went to Coast Guard because we sent him to um because he too always wanted to fly.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: So again, we always look at our children.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't really want music, you know, and um and we took him to the school.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: It used to be on Charlotte Street, right opposite the hospital.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Captain Fafa was his teacher, and um after he went, he got his um private pilot's license, and then he got commercial pilot license, he went to the Coast Guard, right?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um the first time he wasn't successful.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: Now again, I always everything is a lesson, right?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: So they had thousands of people applying, and they had three scholarships to be offered.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think one was for air guard, one was for um, which was Coast Guard, one was for defense, and one was for the army.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: Different, three different things, right?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_02: And they were picking one.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: One from each group.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: So we went down, and I am there every time.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: When the exam, I went, when the days they had to run, I went.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the day we went to um for the interview.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: We went to Sharama.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: So just him suit everything and we go on.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: When he went in, he came back out in two minutes crying.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: So um I said, what happened?
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: You say they tell me that are too qualified or overqualified.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: I said, so they didn't know that when you're sending your papers.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: But then I realized what you know how it is, right?
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: And how the three went, how the three were chosen.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and what I tell my children is never be disappointed.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: I say sometimes the best doesn't win.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: You understand?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: I say, and you have to understand what miss you and pass you.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: And my children grew up on that.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: And three years later, when he went again, this time they were looking for an officer in the same air guard, and he got it.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the same young fellas had to call himself.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: And he was flying the president and the prime minister.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, but then after he went to BWIA and then he went to Carl, and now he's a senior captain and a training captain.
• 45:19
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:20
  Corie: Were you finding the energy to do this?
• 45:21
  Corie: One in Chagarama so training, the next one's again south and picking up Trump.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's find the I think we saw naturally, at least me.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: I I grew up.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: Monty was more um Monty like a ride bike.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: He used to be a motorbike rider, yeah, from Princess Tong.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: He was from South.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I was always, I think my mother had a dance group, and I dad I used to play netball.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: I dance for Princess Margaret.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: I myself had my only little moments.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I show my shall it say if you look in the oval in 1962, you'll see me there dancing overpool.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_02: And you'll be looking, you say, Oh god, yeah, look at the long legs, look at the long legs.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I dance for Europo for Princess Margaret for independence.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I contributed.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, when we yeah, well, um Beryl McBurney, and they used to picture it from different schools, and I used to go to St.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_02: Crispin, right there on the avenue.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and 62, 62 I went, and that would be August.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that could have been just before I went to secondary school.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um I got chosen and I did Horopo, the Spanish dance, um, in the oval for Princess Margaret for our first independent for our independence where we gained it in 1962.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I was always in a thing, but I was no big child star.
• 46:44
  Corie: Right, yeah, yeah.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but I was always there, I was good for myself, and yeah, so that um and then we could multitask, and yeah, so my children got that, and they got accustomed to doing things.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: They weighed scouts, they everything, you know.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, swimming.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so they could have done that, and we could have done that.
• 47:03
  Corie: And so, yeah, so that energy that's another one of the many things, like oh you're separating, you had that from yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: And Monty, as I say, was always there, and we go in and we, you know.
• 47:11
  Corie: It makes sense.
• 47:12
  Corie: And my children could depend on us.
• 47:15
  Corie: Going back to 86, when you have that um, well, I call it pushback and the national thing, which for me as a parent, I'm not sure that could be difficult for me.
• 47:23
  Corie: I don't care deal with David, imagine the papers and Kitchener and all them people coming at you.
• 47:28
  Corie: And your response to that, or as a team, I suppose by that time, is to go and find somebody to because they said that you came, we all came up with the idea of we're gonna address this too young thing in song.
• 47:38
  Corie: Deliberates in terms of how you're looking for.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, we and we went to DV Joker um with our ideas, right?
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: And Joker did the song, and then um again, I think Marshall knows what he he doing, what he wants.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be there, and we we hear saying and thing together.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: But he was always a child who knows what he wants to do.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: So then we come now and we went in preliminaries.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: We went in the semis, Marshall come first in the semis, but then of course, can you oversi again like to follow Marshall all his life, all his life, right?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: They first begin to disqualify his second song, which was I Love My Country, because they said that um it was written before Ash Wednesday, so it couldn't qualify, right?
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: Before Ash Wednesday of 85, right?
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: So it didn't qualify, so we had to drop it.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then now we had to go back to Joker, and Joker wrote a song called Get Up and Get, which is a song with youths, right?
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: And um, we just had about a week or two to prepare it, and then on top of that, he picked one.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: So he sang first, and he had to sing because that time he sang two songs, right?
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: And he had to sing the slower song, Get Up and Get First, and then he sang a party song which was too young to succa.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_03: Right, yeah.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: And he mashed them up.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, he had that extra little thing with the fallen diaper and the mystery of the fallen diaper, you know, but um, but he came fifth.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: He beat some of the big boys, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: Some angry, one in particular.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_02: Still, well, no, he can't still because he moved on.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right, okay, he transitioned.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: All right, and um, and he came fifth, but again, the lesson of the judge's decision is final, yeah.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we live to see him go in three finals or more, but he came fifth the first time, the big one.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_02: Then he came third in 1991.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, what do you think he would have come in in 2024?
• 49:46
  Corie: Yeah, nothing else but five, three, one.
• 49:50
  Corie: And it went on.
• 49:51
  Corie: So this is not this three decades now.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and um, you have to put it out there, or you have to recognize signs, you know, like um Marchell knew when his song Anchor went out, he knew it was going to win road match, not because of any soaker mafia or anything like that, right?
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: Marchelle has the experience of Marchell doing this since 1982, and he has been in the road match race, he knows what it takes, right?
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_02: We know the difference between a good party song and a stage song.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, right.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: So there are songs that are very, very, very big.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: 1997 was one of those types.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: Head and head was ain't by Ronnie McIntosh.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: That was big, but when you hear Big Truck now, Big Truck is what Carnival is.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_02: So the two songs are great songs, but they serve different purposes.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: And when you look at it, you can't beat it.
• 50:58
  Corie: No, I hear him talk about it so much of what he said here in terms of uncore.
• 51:02
  Corie: Because I mean the the the reality is when he power them songs, something will happen.
• 51:07
  Corie: When when you all as a team move, it polarizes.
• 51:10
  Corie: People will love it or hate it.
• 51:11
  Corie: It will seem to have nobody in the middle where the Montana's can soon again.
• 51:14
  Corie: But at all.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: No matter how small it is, because I looking at them, I always look, you know.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because I look at everything myself.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: So lady, it's too much on this social media, but I like to look because again, maybe because of the educator in me, I always look at things and take lessons.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: If it's you, it's alright.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: But if it's me, yeah, with this name, no partner.
• 51:41
  Corie: It will be a big seed.
• 51:42
  Corie: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_02: But we we accustomed to that.
• 51:44
  Corie: Yeah, I suppose.
• 51:46
  Corie: So that 86 caused that same uproar.
• 51:48
  Corie: Same performance was.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_02: Look at that.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: You're not to cry.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is where I taught me lessons.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: The best doesn't always win.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because the next year he lost.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: But then he knew how to accept it.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you're going to be disappointed or you'll be sad.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: But let that write.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: Take it as a lesson to know the next time there's something else I have to do better from what I did.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: Do not compare yourself with somebody else.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: And you hear it in the song, you're only as good as the last performance.
• 52:33
  Corie: Yeah, it's an important message.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right through the song had messages, but I think too, when you talk about pushback, some of us are not ready to go there yet.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um, because it's a kind of change.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: You party, but you're taking the message there.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, um, so that's okay.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and and also the songs were very good for 2026.
• 52:56
  Corie: Yeah, it was one of them.
• 52:57
  Corie: Excellent.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: It was one of them, yes.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but every song serves a purpose, you know, and I think that Mark Bachel recognized that.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: So you will see as he tells you, if you look on my album jacket, you'll see I have a pendant saying 12.
• 53:10
  Corie: Yeah.
• 53:11
  Corie: I went back and checked it on our side, then put that in after.
• 53:14
  Corie: And I went back and checked anything they said before we use the event.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's right there.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_02: And and and he was, and he will tell you, he was quarreling when he looked at the the big billboard by the by Roxy.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: He he tell you, put that too big.
• 53:26
  Corie: Yeah, nobody noticed that.
• 53:27
  Corie: No, no, no, no, no.
• 53:28
  Corie: I didn't think anybody noticed.
• 53:29
  Corie: Everybody sees it after.
• 53:30
  Corie: Yeah.
• 53:31
  Corie: In terms of that vision and foresight, you talk about the fallen diaper.
• 53:35
  Corie: I mean, that that age, the performer that pulled up that diaper the whole time and still deliver that way.
• 53:39
  Corie: What in you or it when you all started to realize that you want to save all these things?
• 53:44
  Corie: Because you've been documenting this in physical form for a long time.
• 53:48
  Corie: From 1982 to 2000.
• 53:49
  Corie: You cut out volumes in Kitchener City.
• 53:50
  Corie: All you had on the street.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: Everything that I had, I have.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I have it physically, like we have volumes upon volumes of newspapers, magazines, and everything.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have it digitally, and we have um acta archive, the the digital archive is in the office, and now is being run by Peter, same Peter C in the office.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: We had somebody who did the earlier um curation, she was our curator, and we did the actual things.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: And this was inscribed by UNESCO either last year or year before.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and now we're ready to share it with the public.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and we could use that, we're going to use that like in exhibitions and setting up a physical museum because we have a museum where we have everything catalogued, we have things saved in acid-free paper, we have them on shelves, we have everything there.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I think again, when you ask me how I did it, again, is the the educator in us because Monty Body books um business in music and we read and we research.
• 54:57
  Corie: So you're learning the business management business as you are going along?
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_02: I learned it as as I went along, because remember, I was doing education.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: I did my degree in education, and then when I was finished with that, I did later on at UEA, I did a postgraduate diploma in ACEM, which was entertainment in entertainment management.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: I never had any experience.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_02: Both Monty and I were educators.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I saw that, I was an old lady, but when I saw that, I realized I got a distinction and I always get a distinction, and then it motivates me to go again.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then I decided I'll do my master's.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then I did my master's and graduated in 2018, and it was a master's in philosophy in cultural studies.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then I did my thesis on Monk Monty, showing you that.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_02: And two years later, when we had the um the pandemic, and I was in Toko, I wrote the book, which is an adaptation of my thesis.
• 55:58
  Corie: I understand.
• 55:59
  Corie: Also, Marshall take the thesis on Winnie Calypso Monarch.
• 56:02
  Corie: You take the thesis on even we can joke in this family, you know.
• 56:04
  Corie: You're again.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: No, well, that's one of these things.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_02: Again, our children never really followed in our footsteps in terms of we are teachers, but now our children are teachers because Marcus trains pilots, right?
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_02: Marcus runs the chocolate factory and he trains his workers, right?
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_02: Marchelle does master classes and he teaches everybody that he works with.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: So when you're in the studio with him, yeah, yeah.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, even it's always there's always a lesson.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: So both our children really followed in our footsteps.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't go, and I think eventually eventually Marshall might be a professor.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: They're trying to encourage him to do his PhD.
• 56:46
  Corie: Oh, yeah, to go on to that.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but he tell him he needs a rest.
• 56:49
  Corie: Yeah.
• 56:50
  Corie: The doctors say, I listen to this one, and the doctors say, Mr.
• 56:52
  Corie: Canavale, I wasn't good enough.
• 56:54
  Corie: Yeah.
• 56:56
  Corie: So you collecting those things, when did you realize?
• 56:58
  Corie: Because, like, for instance, you live in Jamaica.
• 57:00
  Corie: When I was in Jamaica, I noticed um things like Bob Marley Museum on Hope Road or Bunny Whaler has a sort of, you know, almost like an empire you could go to and see his early works and stuff.
• 57:10
  Corie: You have that in mind since then?
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, again, when I did ACEM, my my thesis, it wasn't like a thesis, I did a museum.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I said, so I always had that, and I am fascinated.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_02: I believe in the preservation of heritage, the preservation of things like this.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I know there was a delta of this because our people don't really save things like that.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so therefore I made it my business.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_02: But knowing, as I said in the beginning, that this little boy is going to be something.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that you need this to um to teach and to pass on knowledge and leave a legacy, you know, behind.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I understand.
• 57:55
  Corie: Yeah.
• 57:55
  Corie: Like I tell my mother sometimes I wonder if it was that with you, you know, because still I say, Gail is a hoarder, you know, all these other reports, book and things.
• 58:00
  Corie: She's keep every test I fail.
• 58:02
  Corie: It's not different story with me and Masha.
• 58:04
  Corie: Yeah.
• 58:04
  Corie: Every test I fail, she had a thing there.
• 58:06
  Corie: I said, Well, you wouldn't let me forget these things.
• 58:07
  Corie: She had every CXC slip I do every time I repeat.
• 58:09
  Corie: But I had all those things, but for both sons, yeah, it's something that you're just keeping yourself.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, it was for entertainment.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that Marcus was in there in the early years.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I had um, and I had to pull out some the other day.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_02: Marcus had to do some research.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: So um, he was small, but he had traveled to Jamaica.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, he was living in Jamaica.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_02: So in 78, my mother came to visit us.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: And as usual, we always take our children on an educational trip.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, wherever we used to do um nappy and them, that until they become big men and they want to go because now it's girls.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but um we took them.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's important.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: No, true.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: We used to carry them on the carrying them everywhere to see something.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_02: If we go to Canada, we will take them to all these places and things.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so when we were in Jamaica, my nephew came to and my mother came to spend Christmas with us, and we went to Port Royal.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_02: Now, Port Royal is important to Jamaica.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_02: That was when they had the earthquake.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_02: So you have the giddy house and things, and we taught them, we took them there and we took pictures.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: All those pictures I have.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then Marcus had to draw things and um and he drew it, you know, and he's showing you where they think, and then he's using all our pictures, and they talk about the train.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: We took the train and carried them down on the side, going down um north.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so they have all that to look at.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: But as Marcus got bigger, you know, and he separated and go and did that.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I still take pictures like when um and I have them, like when Marcus, when Marshall travels with him, he will be in his um pilot captain uniform, and Marshall will be next to him, and we always keep that.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 59:56
  Corie: So maybe it's one of the things that bothers me a little bit, and that why I'm grateful for people like you who are willing to come here and tell some of these stories, because I find that as on a national level, we don't pay enough attention to those things.
• 1:00:07
  Corie: I feel like in the moments when greatness being created, we almost wait for it to be internationally recognized before we do something about it here.
• 1:00:14
  Corie: Like even with Alvin, um, one of the things that we were talking about with him was his he has an amazing archive of conversations like these.
• 1:00:22
  Corie: But you say some of it um tape over with Panorama News.
• 1:00:26
  Corie: Yeah.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: Which is well, this is what I was saying.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like um, like we try to own our archive material and our footage, so that I remember in 2022 we approached Banyan to buy the Banyan archive that is Marshall's footage.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: For example, like they did um they did a documentary with him, so we have that, and um uh but it used to have Banyan on it.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_02: And in 2022, we approached them, and in 2023, we bought all our footage from Banyan because we always believe in doing the writing.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, we used to have to pay license fees for whenever we use anything, like like when we were doing Napi's video day one, right?
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: We had to go back with some of the Panasonic days and use it.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, and those belong to Banyan.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: So we had to pay license and we do that.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_02: Even this documentary we have now, it took us 10 years because we went through every single person that appeared.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: We had um Rihanna, we had Drake, we had people, some people pass on.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_02: But we got permission, some people came free, some people had to we had to pay, all the songs were cleared, all the pictures were cleared, that kind of thing, you know.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and we had all those stuff from yeah, collected and and catalogued.
• 1:01:55
  Corie: Yeah, collected and catalogued is important.
• 1:01:58
  Corie: Because when there's so much, yeah, the catalogue is our job.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_02: We catalogue it um in present time, in current time.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we go in, going, going.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_02: And now, like um we have Peter now that um will come on the scene to work with our management to take the new stuff and put it up on the um, you know, first um so that we can use it digitally, and we have things where people could come and look at it, or anywhere mass and management is or are they could access it and the public could access it, but with limitations, of course.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so I will call like Judd or Peter and say, I want so and so, and they could go in and they could check it, they could edit it, they could give it to me.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, that kind of thing.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_02: We have it all there.
• 1:02:44
  Corie: Well, I appreciate you all for doing that because when we could talk about the giddy house in Port Royal, it would be nice to see Carnage or see separate, you know, just the the entirety of it for people who may not ever live while Marshall Montana will live in or while we live in.
• 1:02:57
  Corie: I'm telling you, I hope they could see it.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like I seen when um we got invited to go to um Central Park this year.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_02: We go in Central Park, August.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_02: I said to Marshell, I said, Marshall you know we went to Central Park decades ago.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_02: Big crowds.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I went back and I sent Simone, right?
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_02: Simone to look for an article.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: I also was looking now for video.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_02: So just my thing is video didn't exist, they had no social media, and so we couldn't find any video thing, but we had newspaper articles.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I could have pulled out my guardian and my expert of 20, no, not 20, 1998.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_02: 28 years ago, we performed in Central Park.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was the year when um we won road match with um footsteps and Toro Toro came second.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I could have pulled up that article.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_02: You see, you don't need no archive in a catalogue, you so many things from the top of your head.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but they didn't no no, but people can feel that I make it up.
• 1:04:09
  Corie: No, that's not the way hello.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, it's Montana.
• 1:04:13
  Corie: Yes, I guess it's left or right.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, so they will feel what's she talking about?
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um, because I could remember too that um when in 2012 we had done going for gold.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_02: Again, pushback, controversy, but I had every paper, I had every receipt, I had everything to show whoever wanted to see it.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_02: And to know that it wasn't just like a CD.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: And who got pay and who did not get pay.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_02: So they can't, and I had what you um, you know, when they want the um audited finances, you have it there.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_02: I had nothing because I know, like in 1986, big headline Marshall Montano, the lawbreaker.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_02: And what do you think the lawbreaker was?
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_02: He ain't paying taxes.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_02: This poor child is 10 years, you know, or 11 years.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_02: So taxes became an important thing to us local and foreign.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so we have, and this is why we have all the different teams set up, right?
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so we have our accounting um group, we have entertainment, we have our lawyers, we have you know everything.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_02: We have marketing and then they have the drone, right?
• 1:05:31
  Corie: Yeah, the drone is important, the drone is important.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_01: Very important, yeah.
• 1:05:37
  Corie: But those early days, you you take up a role of well, mother first and manager, manager as well.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Monty was the manager in the early years.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_02: Initially, yes, but then when he became a geologist and he had to work offshore, and that could have been about ninety eight.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: When he started to work offshore, he wouldn't be there.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_02: So therefore, I took I took over the role before I used to do PR.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_02: Understood.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then I took over the role until luckily for me 2014 came.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_02: We had some stops in between before, you know, that didn't really work out.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_02: But she at that time he was ready to hand over.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, Marshall, me say, Come on, lady, come on, man.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, because I getting old now.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have any experience in all this technology.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_02: I see.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_02: And Monty and I were able to take him from local to Caribbean to diaspora.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_02: All that is happening now, chase the man in lead, and the good thing is that the two of them mesh spiritually, everything.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and he's much younger, remember, I'm older, and thank God.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because all now, so he would rather be scrambling for a manager.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_02: I guess, yeah, you're done with that.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_02: Not only done with that, I couldn't do it because I wasn't damned that well again.
• 1:06:52
  Corie: Yeah, you don't take a toll.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:54
  Corie: Understood.
• 1:06:55
  Corie: That initial managerial role was was it just Marshall or was it always the band and that kind of stuff?
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_02: The band, Marshall, and the band, because um 82 he was by himself, but again, as I said, never by himself.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_02: So you had Vincent, or you had Joey, and he carried the other little boys, and then we had all the little girls and boys from Superia coming, and then in 84, he went to Madison Square Gardens.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this boy.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_02: When he gone, he telling the band, somebody here off key.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Jesus, what this little boy know about Of Key?
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_02: Bam! So said, so done, right?
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_02: We went, I think Dominica, same thing.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Somebody the pitch, the pitch.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then he came back, and that was in me.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_02: And in 1984, May 19th, he formed Pranasonic.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_02: And his brother, his brother Marcus takes the arm, the pips for that.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_02: He used to manage every little biddy party and a little thing here and there.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but from that he said he needed his own band.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_02: And Pranasonic comes from Prana, where we live.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_02: And the Pranasonic really is a play on the Panasonic, but it is really Prana, a breath of life.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_02: That is the development where we lived in Separatia.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, that was the name of it.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_02: I understand.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not PNE, it's P-R-Ne.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_02: Who knew?
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_02: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 1:08:28
  Corie: Now, when you talk to the other boys, you say you talk to Joey, you talk to Peter, all of them call a lady, all of them see it like mother in a way.
• 1:08:35
  Corie: Everybody.
• 1:08:35
  Corie: I hear Napi tell a story, and this is today Napier.
• 1:08:38
  Corie: This was on Nadia Batson podcast, Yellow Call TV.
• 1:08:41
  Corie: And he said that um you all went on tour somewhere in New York, and he had some kind of incident, he ended up having to do community service and clean up somewhere, some highway, some parts of the thing.
• 1:08:50
  Corie: Nappy's still nappy.
• 1:08:51
  Corie: His story is funny as hell.
• 1:08:53
  Corie: Tell it when he comes in.
• 1:08:54
  Corie: But he was talking about, you know, I can't let a lady know I get in trouble on the tour.
• 1:08:58
  Corie: So all of them see you that way, like of course.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_02: Up to the today.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_02: Up to today, Nappy will call me and will tell me something, and I will advise him.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then when he doesn't take my advice, I come back and say, You see what I tell you?
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_02: It was see what happened, and he'll be then I will sit down with my Marshall, and Marshall will talk to me and think when I sit down with Marcus, old Marcus Dennis smiling and he laughing.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_02: Lady, you know, this kind of two different children, two different reactions, but same result.
• 1:09:34
  Corie: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
• 1:09:35
  Corie: So with the management of the banner, you all took up responsibility for managing all these individual careers too, like Farmer and Peter C, because all of them had their own successors in the business.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, um, with Napi and Patrice, remember they were with us.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_02: And in the beginning, the promoters didn't want to hire them.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_02: They wanted Marshall.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_02: The same thing happened when we went to um the tent.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_02: We went to the tent in 1986.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_02: They wanted to hire Marshall to sing with Roy K.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Monty went to the promoters, the um from Spectacular, and he tell them, Well, I want to bring the band.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Marshall has a little band because again I tell you, we don't do anything with Marshall alone.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_02: So they say, um, we have no money.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Monty said, we don't want money.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_02: We will take the same money and we will divide it up.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we took that, and then everybody was from South.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then we bring them and we used to put them up in Hilton on the weekend from Thursday.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Then everybody do their homework, we carry them back to Separatis, School Friday, and then we come back down, stay in Hilton over the weekend.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_02: And we did that for all the years with the same, same money.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_02: When we started now as ecstatic and we started traveling, they will pay Marshall money, but they don't want to pay for Patricia and things.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_02: So we take the same money and we divide it up.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_02: But then a time came where remember Patrice and they were doing good, and Napi were doing good.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_02: And um, Marshall didn't want to do all that work, all that traveling and jump to job, but he realized that he didn't want to keep them back, he didn't want them to go where he was going and slow down.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, people might have taken it in a negative, say that we give out it wasn't that.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_02: We were giving them the opportunity to develop as individuals, and what happened?
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Take off.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_02: Not take off, they had the top, they did very well because they had the lessons there and they had the talent and they had the repertoire.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_02: And they continued, both Patrice and Farmer continued.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know, today everything farm will still call me and I will still tell him, you know.
• 1:11:53
  Corie: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:54
  Corie: And from that business standpoint, because there's been a business, even when you say there, you say you're bringing them from South, you're putting them in Hilton.
• 1:12:00
  Corie: I, as a manager, I might be looking for a inn, something that's cheaper and that kind of thing.
• 1:12:05
  Corie: That business acumen when it became ecstatic limited, and you that's something you always wanted to approach it as.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it was a business.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, we studying it as a business.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_02: However, we still at the time, we still had to conserve.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it used to go different ways because we we developed a relationship with Hilton that um it was understanding.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Then they were little boys, and and we would share rooms and thing.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember when we went to Toronto, early o'clock, we got one big room.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_02: And Monty and I slept on the floor and we give them the bed and we give them the couch, and we went, and we tell them, don't worry about that.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_02: When we get up and we dress, because we always dress and we go, we match it up.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_02: So all them who have their nice place to say, they don't know.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_02: They don't know what we're doing.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_02: We go and we think and we train and all they go and all they match up and we move from there to there, and then we started asking for different things, you know, from a business perspective.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like when we started, you can't come and make us sit down on plastic chairs behind stage.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_02: All right, and I know you don't want to spend any money.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_02: So Marcus and I approach courts.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I asked courts, I say, Oh, well, they want to do uh um a dressing room saying courtesy courts for Marshall Montana.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_02: And they say, okay.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we get tent, we get carpet, we get chairs, and then they put up a side, a sign saying Marshall Montano's dressing room courtesy.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Marcus now you said transport that dressing room from fet to fit, right?
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because again, he's a businessman too, right?
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and after that, then everybody else sitting down.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_02: They want to know how they give Marshall Montano um dressing room.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_02: They ain't give Marshall Montano no dressing room partner.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Marshall Montano management organize it.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_02: You understand?
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_02: We negotiate for that.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that is one of the things now that the other artists enjoy.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's how they become standard.
• 1:14:11
  Corie: But you say you say it's polarizing too, you know, because there's two tales to that story.
• 1:14:15
  Corie: There are some people who say Marshall and then mash up the thing because they make promoters do this and that for artists and that, and then there are some people who would say that y'all like everybody benefits from some of that initial.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when they will always have the nasiers, but these things are always, remember, life always changing, things always changing, and I have to look for development.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Do you always want to stay like this?
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_02: No, you always want to grow.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Why you want to come to the backstage and sit down on a plastic chair?
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_02: When you could have your group nice and you're sitting down there, you have your drinks and you have your things to eat, and you're there for hours.
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you are an artist, so you must be respected and other people getting it in other places.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 1:14:59
  Corie: You know what bothers me a lot or used to bother me before?
• 1:15:02
  Corie: When we have international artists coming here and they send a rider, I see it backstage where international artists have that set up that's better than some people's house.
• 1:15:10
  Corie: Of course.
• 1:15:11
  Corie: While all we artists have a tent to come and go almost as if until it that was good.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_02: They had a tent until they used to have to come and sit on a little white plastic chair.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Or notice nothing.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_02: You understand?
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_02: So when we do that, you know, that is um to benefit long time.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_02: I know artists used to go away to the states and they had to stay for months, and you had to find a basement to stay, and you had to have your own money.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's podium, is his hotel, is you're going back and forth.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that could never be.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_02: I heard somebody say that and I laugh.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Another artist that that is spoiling.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_02: No, that is progress.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Progress, honey.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_02: You can't stay one way or else you're going to you're not going to be a success.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_02: You are going to be mediocre.
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_02: And if that's what you want, that's fine with you.
• 1:16:06
  Corie: Yeah.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 1:16:07
  Corie: I want to talk about ambition for excellence because when you think about that era you're talking about before social media, there's no world where we could envision that now you could see everything about an artist.
• 1:16:17
  Corie: You can imagine if our artists know or international artists, we call them big soak artists, still saying in plastic chair backstage, you'll never break through the international market.
• 1:16:25
  Corie: We just wouldn't be taken seriously.
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, you know, everything again is what you invest in.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_02: You have to invest in your development, you have to invest in yourself, you have to invest in your business, you have to be serious.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a joke.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's not where, for example, with us, yes, we will do.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we used to do it long time, a lot of shows, and you know, but it must not be where you have one foot on the stage and one foot on the step, and when you finish, you're going to boy, I mash up, you know.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_02: I went 10 feet.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_02: But then how much you're making the 10 feet?
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_02: When you put it together, and then now people would not want to pay to see you in something big because they could go and see you in a bar for free.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you're going to do some of that, but you have to know, you have to look at it and be strategic about what you're doing.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_02: You also have sometimes people say they they um they don't um they don't perform for small groups, they're not performing free, they're not performing for this.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes, even now, after 44 going on 45 years, sometimes you have to decide I have to do this for free because then you will benefit.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_02: Everything is not about money, you know, and everything is not about big show.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like I tell all these young artists, I'll say in 1985, we went on a school tour.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_02: So we went to perform um Mukarapo Senior Comprehensive.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_02: We were moving from school to school, and when we reached the Mukarapo, there were five people in the audience.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Five people.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_02: So Monty called them together.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Monty said, listen to me, there are five people out there, but I want you all to go there and perform just as if the place was sold out.
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_02: The same energy, the same program, and everything.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_02: And they went out.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_02: And would you believe out of those five people, we got one of our biggest opportunities.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_02: There were five people there.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_02: One man came and gave us a hundred dollars and said, good, good, good.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And after that, we got four jobs, paying jobs from that one man, and that was in San Fernando.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_02: And we never got to thank that man.
• 1:18:50
  SPEAKER_02: The other day, 19, no, not 19, 2025, when we had a party, and Marshall had the competition.
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_02: You remember the school that one?
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Or the children that one?
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_02: That was San Fernando.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_02: When I went up there, I called Monty.
• 1:19:05
  SPEAKER_02: I say, Monty, I this place, boy, and this place bringing back some memories.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Remind me, and I tell him, because sometimes there's a brain too.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_02: So um, Monty said, um, yes, that is Mr.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_02: So and so.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that was this, um, it was the Blind Welfare Association at the time.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_02: And he took us and he gave us four jobs and ting, ting, ting, ting.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_02: Where would we have gotten that if we did not play for those five people?
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it took us 40 years to repay him.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_02: He was no longer there, but it's the same people, and they had changed the name and the same kids, and they were able to experience Marshal Mandan.
• 1:19:50
  Corie: Yeah, that is the same thing I told with that that ambition for excellence.
• 1:19:54
  Corie: Because I think it was Mari Ashby who was here and he was talking about that.
• 1:19:56
  Corie: He said, Boy, sometimes people like this thing now with artists today or a small crowd and it we need them in a way.
• 1:20:02
  Corie: And he was saying the same thing.
• 1:20:03
  Corie: He said, You don't know who in that crowd, you don't know who could make the difference in your in your career.
• 1:20:07
  Corie: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:08
  Corie: Going back to the Bunny Waylon and the Bob Bali example, where you see those things expanded much broader than music.
• 1:20:15
  Corie: And they have several different brands of all kinds of unrelated products.
• 1:20:19
  Corie: Again, that's things that you all deliberately worked on from Ecstatic Limited.
• 1:20:23
  Corie: So we have chocolate.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Since then, we're doing um we're doing merchandising.
• 1:20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, since then.
• 1:20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_02: And the big thing there about it is we believe in forming relationships.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_02: So we had this relationship with um a company that produced um t-shirts, right?
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we had all these great ideas, so we will have a Toro Toro t-shirt, what they say, they say, and that led right up to present.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_02: And the same people involved right now, even more so.
• 1:20:57
  SPEAKER_02: One of the people who were involved with us, that is in 1997, now manages our Coco Estate.
• 1:21:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we keep that relationship.
• 1:21:06
  SPEAKER_02: The girl who was the who did the first collaboration with Michelle, who was called Gail, she works for us in the chocolate business.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so we have developed those relationships and we have developed partnerships, and we have done that in every different sphere.
• 1:21:25
  SPEAKER_02: And we also believe, as they say, in um diversification.
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we have the the part where you're selling merchandise, which Chandra is in charge of, and we have people locally, and we have people abroad.
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, we have the chocolates, um, and and we went further than chocolate, and we wanted to support the cocoa industry, and we bought a um a cocoa estate.
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_02: So now we're doing our own thing.
• 1:21:52
  SPEAKER_02: So instead of going from um bean to bar, we go from tree to bar.
• 1:21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, straight through.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, so we could and then we also into real estate.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we have a beach resort in Toko, which my husband runs, right?
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have one in um in Tobago, and then we have a boutique hotel in Port of Spain.
• 1:22:13
  Corie: Yeah, I mean, much easy to see.
• 1:22:14
  Corie: Anybody who's doing something in entertainment knows the jersey could be a good thing to sell.
• 1:22:18
  Corie: It's a real jersey culture, you know.
• 1:22:19
  Corie: I'll go straight through the real jersey culture.
• 1:22:22
  Corie: But how do you chocolate thing?
• 1:22:24
  Corie: That's all, I mean, I don't do no artistry and how they end up in the top of the.
• 1:22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, again, you know, I have a best friend who went the chocolate business too.
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_02: She I met her through that.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_02: We had a store in the airport, right?
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_02: In um duty free.
• 1:22:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we used to sell the t-shirts and everything there, and then we supported local um people, local processors and local manufacturers.
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_02: And she came to our office, um, I think it was in um 2014, and she brought these chocolates for us to put in this daughter cell.
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I know me, my brain always working, my brain don't stop.
• 1:23:03
  SPEAKER_02: I said, but wait.
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um Marshall Monday or 2014 was Marshall Monday.
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Marshall Monday coming up and it's in the time of um Valentine's Day.
• 1:23:15
  SPEAKER_02: And our theme was Love Nation.
• 1:23:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I said, we want a chocolate.
• 1:23:21
  SPEAKER_02: And she came on board and she made the chocolate for us, and we call it Love Nation.
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it was so successful because she too, like me, believe in natural things.
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_02: And our chocolate is made up of just three ingredients um cocoa butter, cocoa nibs, and sugar, right?
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it tasted good, and then we went on from there, and after a while, we said we want to form our own company because we were doing it under ecstatic.
• 1:23:49
  SPEAKER_02: So then we fired, we found MCCL, we formed that, and that was Montano's Chocolate Company Limited.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_02: But she was still, Julian was still, which is RTT, was still making the chocolate for us.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then she came and she trained us, and we make the chocolate for ourselves in a factory.
• 1:24:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we started the factory, and Marcus heads the factory and owns the property there.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_02: And after that, in what must be 2021 or 2022, I decided we had to depend on people to get cocoa.
• 1:24:24
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes you get in, and sometimes you're not getting, and when you can't get, you know what happens there.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we went and we got our own thing and we hired people.
• 1:24:35
  SPEAKER_02: And again, this is where this the person who was dealing with us hired him to maintain it.
• 1:24:42
  SPEAKER_02: So now we have, and then when we we started, we used to buy um the beans from different people, and we started to plant ours, and we started to clean up that cocoa estate, and now we're doing it.
• 1:24:58
  SPEAKER_02: We used to pay people to dry it first, now we're doing our own fermenting and our own drying, and so it's going, and so we're developing.
• 1:25:06
  Corie: Yeah, it's interesting to get into a business like that.
• 1:25:09
  Corie: And it's it's so when like here and you're talking about some of these things, even without saying it directly, like you hear the same core values you talk about in the beginning, coming through that idea of.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_02: And and sometimes, and most times, it's either Marcus or Marshall coming up with the idea, or let us do so and so, let us do so and so, or they have the ideas, or Monty coming.
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Monty's always come from a higher level, and he's always the man with the books, and always, he always that me, I am the practical action, the ready to take action.
• 1:25:39
  SPEAKER_02: Monty's the logical thing, and he will show you all, you know, yeah, so that we have that whole wrong thing, and when I do in my thing, so he's always there and we're gone.
• 1:25:50
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:51
  Corie: Good combination.
• 1:25:52
  Corie: Good combination.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_02: So now what we're doing now is we're preparing that legacy.
• 1:25:56
  SPEAKER_02: So Monty's in Toku, where he's developing that toco estate.
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_02: We started with um with a seven acres, and now we bought some land around there, and we developing and thing, and then now Marshall and Rennie getting involved in the expansion and sure, sure, sure.
• 1:26:14
  Corie: So it's something that you all is you see it as an independent business that you'll grow on.
• 1:26:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, everything linked because when we in in the in the um in the hotels and anything, we we we will put the chocolates, we will, you know, we will give away the chocolates.
• 1:26:30
  SPEAKER_02: People in other things we'll give them an opportunity to go and spend time in Tokyo or in Tobago.
• 1:26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we we see that connection.
• 1:26:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Again, as I say, in the um the hotel, the little boutique hotel we have in Port of Spain, it's small, but every room is named after uh um a road match, even the kitchen, you know.
• 1:26:51
  SPEAKER_02: We we have a name for it, and um, and we have pictures of all the different things, so we keep it all kind of connected, yeah, and all kind of local, all rooted.
• 1:27:01
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, because we again we believe in in supporting local.
• 1:27:05
  SPEAKER_02: That is where why we went in that chocolate business, yeah.
• 1:27:08
  Corie: Right, yeah, yeah.
• 1:27:09
  Corie: And we keep doing that.
• 1:27:10
  Corie: With you, with you.
• 1:27:11
  Corie: No, David has always told me we had to ask the back and all questions somewhere around this hour, it's back and all time like super blissing, right?
• 1:27:16
  Corie: So you're dealing with no pushback in 86 and anything.
• 1:27:19
  Corie: You all went through several times where it's public controversy.
• 1:27:22
  Corie: Where I don't know as I think every controversy is public first.
• 1:27:25
  Corie: Well, I guess everything is public small, eh?
• 1:27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Everything is public page.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's public and front page.
• 1:27:30
  Corie: Right, of course, of course.
• 1:27:31
  Corie: It's good news.
• 1:27:31
  Corie: I would have talked about it if I was in the medium.
• 1:27:34
  Corie: But let me talk about the brass thing.
• 1:27:37
  Corie: Because that was one where, as a fetter, you're going to brass festival, and your expectation is that you're gonna see bands starting from daytime and finishing daytime.
• 1:27:45
  Corie: And by that time, ecstatic is is left.
• 1:27:48
  Corie: Of course, you can't leave brass.
• 1:27:50
  Corie: So, what's the decision like?
• 1:27:51
  Corie: What led to it when you decided that you, you know, before?
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, of course, one was um Marshall, it was around the time when Marshall had gone.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_02: To do to work with the foreign recording company, right?
• 1:28:04
  SPEAKER_02: And um and Marshall come back, they beg him, the promoters, for him to come and to perform.
• 1:28:12
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, okay, the only way I come in is I have to get a certain position to play.
• 1:28:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because they like to leave Marshall for last.
• 1:28:21
  SPEAKER_02: When everybody plays and everybody tired and everybody play the same ten songs.
• 1:28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he said, give me a certain position to sing and we'll go.
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_02: They agreed.
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_02: They agreed with Monty.
• 1:28:36
  SPEAKER_02: The evening when we go, things change.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_02: They change around the order and they do what they want and didn't say anything, you know.
• 1:28:44
  SPEAKER_02: So this led to that.
• 1:28:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then we decided now, coming from that, we decided Marshall wanted to go different.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_02: He and Napi were discussing, you're playing these top 40 songs over and over.
• 1:28:58
  SPEAKER_02: You hear how much time you'll hear Big Shock.
• 1:29:00
  SPEAKER_02: How many times you're going to hear Ed?
• 1:29:02
  SPEAKER_02: How many times?
• 1:29:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the same thing by different bands.
• 1:29:05
  SPEAKER_02: And what Marshall and Napi did was they used to observe Charlie's roots.
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_02: They were close with David and thing and they watching, and sometimes Napi will be with them and sing.
• 1:29:15
  SPEAKER_02: And David was one of the only people who used and band who used to play their own music.
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_02: So that was the thing.
• 1:29:22
  SPEAKER_02: They say, time to do our own music.
• 1:29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:29:27
  SPEAKER_02: And this is where that alternative concept came about.
• 1:29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because then we decided not only will we do your own music, but you're also going to go in a thematic approach where you're doing a concert within a fit environment.
• 1:29:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you're going to give it a name.
• 1:29:48
  SPEAKER_02: And you will work with that team.
• 1:29:50
  SPEAKER_02: So if you look back, we started in 2003 and it was called Ecstatic Circus.
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_02: But again, you know, if we say that, it's a big scene.
• 1:30:00
  SPEAKER_02: Oh God, where are we going and see any fun things going on stage?
• 1:30:05
  SPEAKER_02: And all of that, right?
• 1:30:06
  SPEAKER_02: They never saw the vision.
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the carnival, it was thing because we went back into old time.
• 1:30:14
  SPEAKER_02: So we brought out all the different characters.
• 1:30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like our guitarist was playing on stilts, right?
• 1:30:20
  SPEAKER_02: That year we had the magic man because Marshall had the disappearing act, right?
• 1:30:27
  SPEAKER_02: So you just have these things in circus, you know.
• 1:30:30
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and it came off well.
• 1:30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then Napi was the ringmaster, and you know, and we had a show, it was a show.
• 1:30:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it changed the face of Soka, and we did that.
• 1:30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we did it on the same night with brass fest.
• 1:30:46
  Corie: Yeah, but probably it's chaos now.
• 1:30:48
  Corie: No, it's front page.
• 1:30:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't know.
• 1:30:49
  Corie: Marshall, mash up brass, you know?
• 1:30:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that that that comes years after.
• 1:30:54
  SPEAKER_02: That mash up brass didn't come years after.
• 1:30:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, of course, they will blame us, you know.
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but as I say, you're only as good as your last performance.
• 1:31:03
  SPEAKER_02: You understand?
• 1:31:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so um and it went on for years, and then in um in in 2010 now, um, and then let me go back.
• 1:31:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Roy Maraj was the one who gave the name when we were looking for a name alternative concept AC, right?
• 1:31:21
  SPEAKER_02: So 2010 come and we were refused the stadium.
• 1:31:27
  SPEAKER_02: So Marshall said he ain't going in no small place to do this now because it has these handle, and he decided not to come in.
• 1:31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because we were told to find our own um venue.
• 1:31:40
  SPEAKER_02: And at that time, um Pitbull had come to Trinidad as one of the people Marshall had brought to Trinidad um Lil John.
• 1:31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:31:49
  SPEAKER_02: But Lil John brought this artist who was never not recognized but good, which was Pitbull.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_02: And when Pitbull saw what Marshall Montano was doing in the stadium at the time, so this was previous to um to 2010.
• 1:32:05
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:32:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right, it was 2010, yeah.
• 1:32:08
  SPEAKER_02: He hired Marshall to be his producer for his tour, 20 cities in New York in 2010.
• 1:32:16
  SPEAKER_02: Pitbull wasn't well known, and Marshall produced for him, Marshall carried his dancers, Marshall showed his own.
• 1:32:24
  SPEAKER_02: And Marshall performed too after that.
• 1:32:26
  SPEAKER_02: Pitbull became a hit.
• 1:32:28
  SPEAKER_02: And he always talked about it, you know, and then now we came back in 2011, and when we came back, um Roy was having the show without us, um, and he was having it the Saturday, so we couldn't get the stadium stadium available on a Monday.
• 1:32:49
  SPEAKER_02: Marshall said, Take any risk.
• 1:32:52
  SPEAKER_02: We're going on the Monday.
• 1:32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what we will call it.
• 1:32:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and we sat down as a family and we discussed, and we say Marshall Monday, and that was it.
• 1:33:02
  Corie: The rest was history, yeah, real history.
• 1:33:04
  Corie: Then shows become its own political business.
• 1:33:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then now we stopped in 2020 because now everybody doing their own show, doing their own music, and that has taken on a life of its own.
• 1:33:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we had we had the run with it, and we were the ones who started that kind of thing.
• 1:33:21
  SPEAKER_02: So now we move on to something different.
• 1:33:24
  Corie: Yeah, I guess it's just the life of innovators because when you try something the first time, so the circus, the marching ban was another one of them things.
• 1:33:31
  Corie: Um, 5.0, which he explained here, because people saying, like, you just take the brass out of the thing, you mash it.
• 1:33:36
  Corie: It was always listening.
• 1:33:38
  SPEAKER_02: They said the same thing with Sokamanak, but then you know, the big artists and they left, you know, so they were no longer taking part and thing, you know.
• 1:33:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that is where it went, you know.
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_02: But um I think the in life, you must be willing to develop and to change, and you must look to improve your product.
• 1:34:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and that's all what we do.
• 1:34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we do that focus.
• 1:34:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then, as according to you, Marshall is an innovator, Marcel is um he evolves so that if you know, first he was a little boy that was too young to soaker, he was winer boy, right?
• 1:34:18
  SPEAKER_02: Then he was um HD, and then he went into uh monk monty, and then he even changed what monk meant because the first time it was um movement of new knowledge, right?
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that is when he started in 2015.
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_02: But then when he observed it, he said, but no knowledge is new, right?
• 1:34:39
  SPEAKER_02: All knowledge existed, but it's when you become aware of that knowledge.
• 1:34:44
  SPEAKER_02: So he went up, he changed it now in 2019 to movement of now knowing.
• 1:34:49
  SPEAKER_02: When you know recognize that knowledge that has existed, you know, yeah, ever since it's infinite.
• 1:34:57
  Corie: But before we wrap, there's something that he asked me, and I can't forget it out.
• 1:35:00
  Corie: So maybe I should ask you, right?
• 1:35:02
  Corie: I want to go back to the cover of the book and that image of his shadow spiral kitchener holding him up, right?
• 1:35:06
  Corie: Marshall, you're talking about our little boy, 1984, so coming out here, and I I I mean, all I might have said, but it's hard for me to see anybody.
• 1:35:14
  Corie: And I have a four-year-old, like just trying to make it to five.
• 1:35:16
  Corie: So to see him now at this age, dominating the ways, dominating.
• 1:35:20
  Corie: You mentioned some of the international collaborations.
• 1:35:22
  Corie: We barely have anybody else in this space who could boast of that type of collaboration.
• 1:35:28
  Corie: But to the cover the book, that Marshall has always, or you, you and your team, worked with every single veteran that's been in this business.
• 1:35:36
  Corie: I see him on stage.
• 1:35:37
  Corie: I always remember a PNM fet with him and Stalin.
• 1:35:40
  Corie: I'll never forget that.
• 1:35:41
  Corie: Just because of what Stalin means to me and what Marshall means to me.
• 1:35:44
  Corie: I remember seeing him in what what coconuts was Cascadia with Lord Nelson.
• 1:35:50
  Corie: Still take-well, I mean, he's still taking off that jump all now.
• 1:35:53
  Corie: Yeah, on stage, on stage.
• 1:35:55
  Corie: It had to be deliberate for you all as a team to always work with and collaborate with.
• 1:35:59
  Corie: Even with Kitchener, because you tell me he said my Kitchener say all kind of remember he made kernel for me.
• 1:36:04
  Corie: I wonder now how you feel about the fact that Marshall is in that space now where those people who hold him up was undercover.
• 1:36:11
  SPEAKER_02: I will tell you why.
• 1:36:12
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, Marshall was little when he met these people, right?
• 1:36:17
  SPEAKER_02: He was 10 when he met these people and he was working alongside these people, and these people, well, some used to be there to protect him, some were there against him, whatever.
• 1:36:29
  SPEAKER_02: But um he was always among them and he always respected them.
• 1:36:34
  SPEAKER_02: He always knew that he couldn't be them, but he could always emulate them, he could always learn from them, right?
• 1:36:43
  SPEAKER_02: And he could always, wherever he could, help them along.
• 1:36:46
  SPEAKER_02: So that from very early, he decided he wanted to work with these people.
• 1:36:51
  SPEAKER_02: He worked with Rose, he worked with Kitchener, he worked with Sparrow because he used to sing in Kitchener's tent, too.
• 1:36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:36:57
  SPEAKER_02: He he worked with um Chalkdur, and he and Chalkdur had a history because in 1984 I didn't give you that story.
• 1:37:05
  SPEAKER_02: But when we were living Separate to sing the letter, before we come from the bush, as they will say, and we go to Tongue, all the Tongue children there performing with the band.
• 1:37:15
  SPEAKER_02: We going with Ricassette, right?
• 1:37:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because Ashford can come.
• 1:37:20
  SPEAKER_02: Ashford was blind, he was a blind musical, so we went.
• 1:37:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we start off, man.
• 1:37:27
  SPEAKER_02: We put on the cassette.
• 1:37:28
  SPEAKER_02: I am writing a letter, and we're going down the road, man, my fingers crossed.
• 1:37:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we're going down nice verse, nice chorus.
• 1:37:34
  SPEAKER_02: Bam.
• 1:37:36
  SPEAKER_02: Tape bus.
• 1:37:37
  SPEAKER_02: Tape bus.
• 1:37:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, partner, I said, Oh my god, what are we going to do?
• 1:37:43
  SPEAKER_02: Boy, watch me, I watched him, I said, Lord, well, this is it.
• 1:37:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then I will never forget Miss Mitchell Cape.
• 1:37:50
  SPEAKER_02: She was the lady in charge.
• 1:37:51
  SPEAKER_02: She went to him and she said, Listen, if you can go over there and practice with that band and think, I will give you a second chance.
• 1:38:01
  SPEAKER_02: And he went across.
• 1:38:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it was Relator and talked us, who were playing guitar.
• 1:38:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I see.
• 1:38:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:38:08
  SPEAKER_02: And they say, Come.
• 1:38:10
  SPEAKER_02: And they rehearse him and he gets the second chance.
• 1:38:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that second chance is what was the important chance.
• 1:38:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because then he went to the finals and he won, and it changed his life forever.
• 1:38:26
  SPEAKER_02: Now, all the people who they say were against him, Kitchener came to respect him.
• 1:38:33
  SPEAKER_02: All of them well, Rose always loved him.
• 1:38:36
  SPEAKER_02: And Chocdus became his professor.
• 1:38:39
  SPEAKER_02: And Marshall believed in his professor.
• 1:38:44
  SPEAKER_02: You understand?
• 1:38:46
  SPEAKER_02: They believe in one another.
• 1:38:48
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 1:38:48
  SPEAKER_02: So again, is sometimes a lot of people see you out there, they don't know you, and they develop their own perception of you.
• 1:38:57
  SPEAKER_02: And they they they think this is how people in your position behave, or this is what they see.
• 1:39:04
  SPEAKER_02: They say you're showing up, you gotta show off any stage.
• 1:39:07
  SPEAKER_02: How else you will do good?
• 1:39:08
  SPEAKER_02: You're going up there and you're no.
• 1:39:10
  SPEAKER_02: But then outside of this, he is a different person.
• 1:39:14
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, you're very still, and yes, so they don't understand sometimes that that portrayal on stage as how that it might be a different thing when he's in his personal self.
• 1:39:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, you know, but so these relationships develop from the days of spectacular forum and kitchen and tent and working, because remember, he was traveling, he used to go with spectacular to Barbados when they go in with the tent and they see this little boy.
• 1:39:46
  SPEAKER_02: So he grew up with them, yeah.
• 1:39:48
  SPEAKER_02: Something and he respected them.
• 1:39:49
  Corie: Yeah, he's confused, and maybe because of how I see him in terms of just being on stage, just since I know myself he's a star, and I wonder about this perception of Marshall and who he is and things like that.
• 1:40:01
  Corie: So Sparrow was let me say stun, right?
• 1:40:03
  Corie: That's your word.
• 1:40:04
  Corie: Sparrow was stunned.
• 1:40:05
  Corie: He was not easy, he was not an easy character too.
• 1:40:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, I guess.
• 1:40:08
  SPEAKER_02: And Marshall used to work with them, Marshall will understand them.
• 1:40:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, super blue, when um when super blue won in 2013, Marshall took Super Blue because both of them won and they went on tour together.
• 1:40:22
  SPEAKER_02: You sing with him fantastic when they did, yeah.
• 1:40:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I myself, I always tell you a story.
• 1:40:28
  SPEAKER_02: When I stood up in that stadium in 2013, and Super Blue came out, and I see that dust, and I see the place shaking, and my paws raising, I would have given the same results because Marshall was excellent, but you see that nostalgia, of course, yeah.
• 1:40:49
  SPEAKER_02: You see that super blue thing, they can beat it.
• 1:40:51
  Corie: Yeah, but look at Soker Kingdom was the same thing.
• 1:40:53
  Corie: I remember the first time I hear it is like just to see two of them together, I think is a big thing.
• 1:40:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then when they go out, Marshall know how to deal.
• 1:41:03
  SPEAKER_02: He's not um he's not singing here and and super blue singing here.
• 1:41:08
  SPEAKER_02: He knows how to deal with that.
• 1:41:10
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing with Shadow.
• 1:41:11
  SPEAKER_02: Shadow not singing here.
• 1:41:12
  SPEAKER_02: He said, same thing with Stalin because he knows all of them, and he knows if they have any idiosyncrasies, he knows how to deal with it.
• 1:41:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:41:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it's always Rose, Mama Rose.
• 1:41:22
  SPEAKER_02: He will go, he will leave here and go and see Rose in New York and visit her, you know, and it remained that respect because he knew them as a child, and we always taught him that.
• 1:41:32
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing with David.
• 1:41:33
  SPEAKER_02: He met David in 1986 in Spectacular, right?
• 1:41:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that year was there, yeah.
• 1:41:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, David because it was the little boy, and David Rather.
• 1:41:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, of course.
• 1:41:43
  SPEAKER_02: Three, four titles for David, and then this little boy coming and singing this song.
• 1:41:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, breaking true.
• 1:41:48
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, he was there with them from the beginning.
• 1:41:50
  Corie: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 1:41:51
  Corie: The same way you all work with everybody, all the veterans.
• 1:41:53
  Corie: I in that same launch event, uh you know what's funny for me this year to see 2026, to see Paris Coutine and Marshall.
• 1:42:01
  Corie: I I don't think I enjoy nothing more than watching how Marshall was worried that he'd fall off that stage.
• 1:42:06
  Corie: It's a complete vessel for me, you know, because I see when I see Paris Coutine, I say it's almost the exact same energy and the exact same vibe, but he's working with a lot, a lot of people.
• 1:42:14
  Corie: Yeah, well, and that is the other thing.
• 1:42:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some people say he don't give back, he don't work with the youths.
• 1:42:19
  SPEAKER_02: Marshall has been working with the youth forever.
• 1:42:22
  SPEAKER_02: His first collaboration was with um Rachel Fortune, right?
• 1:42:27
  SPEAKER_02: And Rachel, that was in 1988.
• 1:42:30
  SPEAKER_02: They sang a ballad, right?
• 1:42:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that ballad was um too early for your love.
• 1:42:35
  SPEAKER_02: 1988.
• 1:42:37
  SPEAKER_02: Right, and now she she's the one that's working with us still.
• 1:42:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then he have all he had Napi and all these people from the the HD family, and then he continue every year.
• 1:42:49
  SPEAKER_02: He works with, he encourages, he distributes the music, he he invests in them quietly.
• 1:42:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:42:56
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have to be out there boasting or singing, we do it, and Marshall knows that when you want to um be relevant and you have to keep up with the times, of course.
• 1:43:06
  Corie: Yeah, that's it.
• 1:43:07
  SPEAKER_02: And these young people are doing well, and sometimes you have to help them by just the exposure.
• 1:43:13
  SPEAKER_02: Look at the little boy um um and Angelo go, yeah, Angelo go and get that from that he understands.
• 1:43:22
  Corie: I hope I live to see he has a Paris Cooty and wants to trim off the stage too at some point.
• 1:43:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and then we have the little girl who is Trinidadian, but she lives in Sinkids.
• 1:43:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:43:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now she won, right?
• 1:43:33
  SPEAKER_02: But then she too is at a different level because she writes books.
• 1:43:38
  SPEAKER_02: She wrote about 12 books.
• 1:43:40
  SPEAKER_02: She wrote a book on her performance with Marshall Hare, and then she um she also is a um a motivational speaker.
• 1:43:47
  SPEAKER_02: Then she had one junior calypso mod.
• 1:43:50
  SPEAKER_02: So these youths are there and they are there for us to promote them.
• 1:43:54
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, sure.
• 1:43:55
  SPEAKER_02: And we do that, and we don't do it with one type of person or one age of person and one kind of music.
• 1:44:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, as you say, the unity show from from the and Marshall's Marshall notice or could identify people who have um, you know, it makes sense.
• 1:44:11
  Corie: Well, I mean, people will say all kinds of things, but one thing I'm sure about is you had the clip out, you have it cut out somewhere, so it's the documentary.
• 1:44:18
  Corie: I mean, thank god you do that so you could do documentaries and books like this.
• 1:44:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm lady, I want a picture with me playing mass in Jamaica in Jamaica, yeah.
• 1:44:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and that is 1978.
• 1:44:31
  SPEAKER_02: 1978, the mass was on campus, right?
• 1:44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yui, it was Trinidad, can't um Carnival on campus.
• 1:44:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 1:44:38
  SPEAKER_02: I could have produced two, three pictures with them playing Indian.
• 1:44:41
  Corie: Amazing, amazing, amazing.
• 1:44:42
  Corie: Like what youth before you're going on, before David Powie to bring up Angelo Gordon.
• 1:44:46
  Corie: Yeah, grandmotherhood, you enjoying that.
• 1:44:48
  Corie: You have any more stars you're making for me?
• 1:44:49
  Corie: Anybody coming up we could look forward to?
• 1:44:51
  SPEAKER_02: My grandchildren are very big, uh-huh.
• 1:44:54
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:44:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um one is studying now to do film, right?
• 1:44:59
  SPEAKER_02: He was always into recording and thing, and my shall encourage him, give him his thing.
• 1:45:05
  SPEAKER_02: One is a producer, um, that's the first one, and and the two girls, one had a um a degree, double major.
• 1:45:13
  SPEAKER_02: She went to university in Ohio, she did dance and art education.
• 1:45:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then the last one, well, she had her other grandmother now was into sewing and singing, so she's excellent.
• 1:45:26
  SPEAKER_02: She came, I think, either fifth or eight and common entrance.
• 1:45:30
  SPEAKER_02: I used a teacher.
• 1:45:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um, but she you know, she was natural too.
• 1:45:36
  SPEAKER_02: But she has the skill in terms of sewing and designing and things, so she likes that, but she's very quiet, right?
• 1:45:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so that um she there too, um, and they've been doing what they have to do, and then Marcus's two children now, um, those are the ones that really grew up in Trinidad.
• 1:45:55
  SPEAKER_02: So Marshall children grew up in the States.
• 1:45:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Marcus' first daughter is um a qualified chef, right?
• 1:46:04
  SPEAKER_02: And she works for one of the major restaurants here.
• 1:46:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then his second child um is studying to fly like him.
• 1:46:13
  SPEAKER_02: So she is in um in Florida doing now.
• 1:46:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, she she got her private license, so she didn't know.
• 1:46:20
  SPEAKER_02: So those are six, and they're all in their twenties.
• 1:46:23
  Corie: Nice, nice, nice.
• 1:46:24
  Corie: Well, congrats on that.
• 1:46:25
  Corie: And and and mainly on everything, all the success, all the businesses, the the innovation and so on.
• 1:46:30
  Corie: Only back and forth, too, and the pushback, congrats on that.
• 1:46:33
  Corie: But I think most importantly, what you always say about that transferring of values, to see those values transfer from children to grandchildren is something.
• 1:46:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's the answer.
• 1:46:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it's the parents, it's not the teachers, it's not the church, it's not the community, all those play a role.
• 1:46:50
  SPEAKER_02: But if you have all of that and you do not have the support and the love of a parent or somebody who represents that, it doesn't always have to be a blood parent, right?
• 1:47:02
  SPEAKER_02: It has to be somebody who shares your vision.
• 1:47:05
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have to be a mother and a father because I grew up in a house with a mother and a grandmother.
• 1:47:10
  SPEAKER_02: And boy, you couldn't beat that.
• 1:47:12
  SPEAKER_02: You understand?
• 1:47:13
  SPEAKER_02: But we were fortunate in the sense that you had two people who shared similar interests, and who shared that interest was developing their children to make a difference in society.
• 1:47:25
  Corie: Yeah, important message for now, right?
• 1:47:26
  Corie: That's it.
• 1:47:27
  Corie: So you said in some of the interviews that you're gonna do memoirs, right?
• 1:47:30
  Corie: So that's the second book.
• 1:47:31
  Corie: Yeah, memoirs.
• 1:47:32
  SPEAKER_02: You mean um I have my second third book because I'm doing one now, which is um it's just a collision of Marshall's lyrics over the four decades and stories about the lyrics and that kind of thing.
• 1:47:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a collision, and then again, I hire a group of locals, special people that will make this a conversation piece.
• 1:47:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, nice, and then I'm going to do my other book, which man, that that might be contribution, yeah.
• 1:47:59
  Corie: All right, well, David, we're gonna do the booking, right?
• 1:48:02
  Corie: When the controversial part comes out, so we had to ask it to sign the book first, and we know the last book will be on parenting, right?
• 1:48:07
  Corie: One of the books after it'll be the fourth book, it will be a parenting book because I might need the boy.
• 1:48:12
  Corie: Okay, so so check this one out.
• 1:48:13
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like this one is the one with the values, okay.
• 1:48:16
  Corie: Good.
• 1:48:16
  SPEAKER_02: Take care.
• 1:48:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't want to write a book, you can always call me.
• 1:48:20
  SPEAKER_02: All right, look at that.
• 1:48:20
  SPEAKER_02: Look how far we get.
• 1:48:21
  Corie: Look at boy, what don't don't give me them kind of opportunity, you know.
• 1:48:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
• 1:48:26
  SPEAKER_02: I good.
• 1:48:27
  Corie: All right.
• 1:48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Who should I put it to?
• 1:48:30
  Corie: To who?
• 1:48:31
  Corie: To David MOS.
• 1:48:33
  SPEAKER_02: David who?
• 1:48:34
  Corie: David MOS.
• 1:48:35
  Corie: You can put it to Corey.
• 1:48:37
  Corie: C-O-R-I-E.
• 1:48:38
  Corie: I know that for sure.
• 1:48:41
  Corie: What do you want me to do?
• 1:48:42
  Corie: Do this from and I can do this in part too.
• 1:48:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.
• 1:48:47
  Corie: I put something here inside to manage by be managed by Lady Here too.
• 1:48:52
  Corie: You see, it's time.
• 1:48:53
  Corie: We have new management.
• 1:48:56
  Corie: But thank you very much.
• 1:49:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's it, but it's not managed now, but I had to do that.