SOCA'S QUEEN ELIZABETH

DEN MOTHER OF XTATIK IS GUIDING LIGHT BEHIND SPIN-OFFS INTO REAL ESTATE AND ECO-TOURISM

By Terry-Ann Browne

Business Guardian

March 9, 2000

Page 1

Elizabeth Montano, neè Romain, manages the finances of one of Trinidad and Tobago's most successful soca acts, that of her son, Machel Montano.

She is also the administrator and pubic relations officer for one of this country's hottest soca bands, Xtatik Limited, along with its subsidiary companies.

Machel Montano's band Pranasonic Express was formed on May 19, 1994 with Elizabeth's husband, Monty, as manager and she herself doing the public relations work.

As she sat being interviewed at Xtatik's office on the corner of Edward and Gordon Street in Port of Spain, Mrs. Montano's cellular phone on her desk rings. It's Machel. He has cut himself on the arm with a knife and is at St Clair Medical Centre.

"It serious?" she asks in a quiet concerned tone. "How high up?" she questions further, before putting the phone down to leave the office and find her husband who was in another part of the building. Minutes later, Monty enters the office, gathers his bag and leaves for St Clair.

Mrs. Montano explained that Machel was calling because he always kept his parents informed, and also because he did not have any money on him. "You see, he is calling his father there. I am sure he doesn't have a cent to pay. Machel doesn't get any money."

"If you asked him how much money he makes, he wouldn't know, because I handle everything. Now and then, he gets a little something," she said.

A bonus? "No," she replied, "a little something to live on."

In 1989, Montano retired from her job as a guidance counsellor to help run the band full-time. That same year, the band's name was changed to Xtatik, an acronym which means X (the male chromosome) TATIK (Trinidad and Tobago International Kings).

In 1992, Xtatik was formalized as a business and became Xtatik Limited.

A liability company was later formed, along with several other companies: RufRex Productions Limited (a recording company), Masuso Publishing (a music publishing company), Mad Bull Label under RufRex, MJM&EVA Properties Limited, and the Montano's latest venture into eco-tourism. There is also a farm, unofficially called Xtatik I-tals in Siparia.

Xtatik Limited is the parent company and deals with Xtatik, the band, which gives live performances in Trinidad and around the world. In addition, Xtatik Limited deals with anything connected to the soca band such as solo performances by Machel or any other members of Xtatik's front line.

Among the artistes in the Montano galaxy is the Mad Bull Crew. The Crew is a group of talented, young performers produced by Xtatik - including Yard Men College, Youth Promotion, Mr. Cash and others.

Merchandising, distribution, of the CDs, tapes, etc also comes under RufRex.

MJM&EVA is the real estate company that is developing the eco-tourist projects in Toco and Maracas, but Xtatik Limited owns their Port of Spain offices as well as property in Toco, Maracas and other places.

The businesses are run by a board of directors, made up of Machel; his elder brother, Marcus; and their parents, along with one of the band members, Joseph Rivers. Shares are held by all members of the band, Xtatik.

After Machel called to explain he was in hospital, Mrs. Montano declined an offer to postpone the interview, saying she was sure her husband could handle the situation. After the interview, if necessary, she would go to the medical centre.

She and her husband, she explained, had raised their children to be independent and responsible. They were both teachers, who met at the Teachers' College in Mausica in 1969 when she was 18.

"Very early, we tried to develop in them independence and a sense of responsibility. When Marcus was only two, my husband would send him to the post office, which was just opposite our house. Monty would teach him how to cross the street," she continued. "When he conquered the post office, he would send him to the main road, then to my mother's house and that kind of thing. It was a deliberate method used in bringing up our children."

"They have lived a kind of charted life, in the sense they didn't live by guess but by strict schedules. They were going to school - education is and was, at the time, the most important thing to us. Proper values, positive values."

"They lived this kind of life, where you go to school and come home straight after school. You have all these friends - they come home to you, where we were involved in music from very early. Then you live by a timetable, where at a certain time you have to study. You have to do your homework," she continued. "We never really made them do too many chores, but they had certain responsibilities. We lived like a close family in that we travelled with them."

Machel, around whom the business has been built, started singing in primary school in 1982, and in 1984. When he was nine, they went "professional."

Mrs. Montano left Trinidad to pursue a Bachelor's of Education degree at the UWI campus at Mona, Jamaica. She majored in administration, as well as doing course work in guidance and counselling. A year later, her husband joined her to pursue a degree in geology.

When she and her sons returned to Trinidad in 1971, a year ahead of her husband, Marcus was sent to the YMCA on Wrightson Road to learn to play the guitar. Then he went to a private teacher in Morvant.

The family moved to Siparia, where Marcus went to the Ashford Joseph Music School. Joseph required him to sing and play the guitar. Not quite up to that, Marcus got Machel to sing while he played.

Machel, already an eager performer, asked Joseph to allow him to sing calypso. He was entered in the school's competition and sang his first calypso, "Reason." It was a composition based on education. That was 1982 when Machel was only seven.

"He came first among the juniors, and second among the seniors," recalled his mother.

Later that year, he participated in Sanfest - where he won. Then on to Twelve and Under, where he placed third in the finals.

In 1983, he sang again in the school's calypso competition. The next year, his mother decided to take him all the way to the junior monarch competition where he captured the nation's attention with "Too Young to Soca". The rest was history, Mrs. Montano says.

Machel's success as a stage performer, according to his mother, did not automatically lead to success as a recording artiste.

"We recorded for him every year, taking the money from our pockets - our own earnings. Nobody wanted to invest like producers," said Mrs. Montano, "but then, after a while, we got people like Mr. Straker and Julian Williams who would take it from a certain level. We would spend the money up front, and then they would prepare the final stages like distribution, etc.

'But we never made any money, and never looked for any. Machel never looked for any money. We wanted just to be out there," she insisted.

"The first time in those 18 years we ever made money from recording was in 1997. This is after recording from 1985 - 12 years later - with the coming of the Heavy Duty CD."

"Other than that, our money was made from live performances. But, I think, one of the things we taught Machel was: this is not about money. It is loving what you do, because no one could be successful in his work if he doesn't love what he does. Therefore, you can't love the money and not the work."

When Xtatik started in 1984, they performed for what she describes as 'small money'. The recordings were subsidised by the money made from the live performances. "We never thought of it as money going out, but as: get the music out, and get our name out there."

Today, to book Machel Montano and Xtatik for a live performance costs upwards of $30,000 a night.

Many of the members of the band and the business used to be Elizabeth Montano's students. "A lot of them grew up around us. Those who have stayed have been the ones who went through the sacrifice and know what it was like to work for $10."

She continued: "Like the 'We Song' that people feel we were boasting about, and don't know it was like a historical song. Where Machel said he knew what it was like to sleep on the street, sleep on the round, and work for $10 or no money at all."

Mrs. Montano says the business was started out of their home at Pran Homes, Siparia, and run by herself and her husband, "We went from 1984 to very recently just being very small. It has not been a profit-making organisation, although people look at it like that. It is mainly to develop young people, let them do things so they could work and have a decent life. In other words, a whole teaching experience.

"We have encouraged the young men to save, to invest, to go into other areas that will develop them as young people. We have attended to their personal lives, my husband and I doing this for almost free."

She noted, that Xtatik is also into accumulating real estate.

"From 1997, we started to show some kind of profit and then we bought this property here which is Xtatik Limited's property. It is owned by the members: shares, everybody has shares in it. We have our office here, our band room, Machel's studio is going to be here and we are going to rent part."

Elizabeth Montano said Machel always liked the hotel business and keeping things natural. Most of the properties he owns in Maracas, Toco and other places have nature trails, fruit trees and are near to the beach.

"We want to link it (the eco-tourism) to the entertainment. So wherever we are, we are going to have his stuff on sale - like a museum or something," said Montano.

Since 1989, Mrs. Montano has been the band's road manager. Her husband retired form his position as a geologist with Petrotrin last June.

After Carnival, Xtatik leaves Trinidad to begin touring the world: wherever there is Carnival.

"Both my husband and I usually go on tour with them but, from this year, I am staying in T&T. I am staying to handle the business, to run the office and to develop Machel's eco-tourism," said Montano.

"I am taking time to run the companies," said Montano. "I started Machel off in that first business, and I want to start him off in this one. I think there is a lot of opportunity for a successful venture and I want to be there with him."

Born in Carenage, she grew up with her grandmother, mother Eva and older sister, Annmarie. Her mother was a seamstress and her father a police officer. She and her sister share the same birth date, but were born two years apart.

"I went to St Crispin's, St James Secondary, Mausica Teachers' College, then UWI," said Montano. She refers to herself as a "late developer" for common entrance but "a high achiever" at secondary level, teachers' college and university.

"I was a great swimmer because we lived very close to the ocean," she explained, adding, "We grew up in Carenage, doing a lot of swimming. I was involved in a lot of community work, in youth groups and teaching from very young. I started teaching while I was going to school. I used to give lessons and I did babysitting and taught children in the Carenage community.

"I was also president of the Legion of Mary at St Peter's Roman Catholic Church," she recalled.

She also played netball, ran for St Crispin's and danced.

"I danced for the Queen in 1966. I could have been a child star. But at that time my mother had a dance troupe, an African dance troupe. I used to dance in that troupe as a child."

One of her proudest moments was when Marcus became a pilot with BWIA. "I think to be at age 27, to have done it through hard work; without any favours and doing so well and loving it, I think it has been one of my proudest moments.

"With Machel, I am proud of him for the way he looked at the business, how he is so caring of other people. If I had liked politics, I would have sent him into it. I know he would be a strong leader. At 25, I don't know how many people have achieved what he has; having lived such a hard life from the age of seven," she reminisced.

"More than just a business woman, I am a mother to my children and to the boys in the band."

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