Machel Montano has been extremely busy these past few months. At 51, the Trinidadian artist has been recording music, promoting a stellar documentary, and getting ready to showcase his life on a grand scale. But ultimately, he wants to continue to get the message of soca out to the entire world.

This summer, Brooklyn Public Library opened Journey of a Soca King: The Exhibition at its Central Library. Created by the Machel Montano Foundation for Greatness, the exhibition traces a career beginning when Montano was a child in Trinidad and Tobago. Costumes and records sit among memorabilia from his years onstage, while visitors can hear his music at the library’s vinyl listening station.

Brooklyn makes an appropriate home for the retrospective, because Montano spent time in the borough at nine years old after receiving a scholarship to participate in Marie Brooks’ summer programming. He later performed at Madison Square Garden on a bill with calypso greats including the Mighty Sparrow and Lord Kitchener. During the 1990s, he lived on Utica Avenue and recorded “Big Truck,” which became his first Trinidad and Tobago Road March victory.

Montano began singing calypso at seven and was touring professionally by nine. As a child performer, however, he noticed young listeners gravitating toward other genres. “It became my mission as early as 11 years old to try to bring them to their culture or bring the culture to them because it just wasn’t trendy, it wasn’t in fashion, it wasn’t appealing to young people based on the lyrics of calypso,” Montano explained.

The musician’s approach helped make him one of soca’s most prominent artists, and he has also watched its audience expand with him. He points to Jamaica’s growing embrace of soca as one example, along with international records such as “Who Let the Dogs Out” and “Turn Me On.” Streaming provided another indication.

“With technology, YouTube, we have seen soca music hitting a million views sometimes in two, three weeks, four weeks when it sometimes took a year,” Montano said. “So it means that there’s more consumption, there’s more awareness, but the music has also developed.”

His documentary, Like Ah Boss: Journey of a Soca King, provides a record of some of this evolution through Montano’s own experience. Filming began during Trinidad Carnival in 2015, when cameras followed him through 16 performances in seven days. He played 45 shows during the full two-month Carnival season. Montano had adopted the name Monk Monte and was reconsidering what success meant after years of competition. He won the International Power Soca Monarch competition with “Like Ah Boss” in 2015, but Montano said he “wanted to win the hearts of the globe and I wanted to develop myself,” so he recorded the entire process. “We kept the cameras rolling and in 2025 we decided that we have a 10-year capsule and we think this is worth something,” he added.

For him, telling the full story matters because soca can easily be reduced to its most visible elements. Carnival brings dancing and elaborate costumes before millions of people, but Montano views participation as something deeper. “There is something deeply spiritual about it,” he said of the genre that has given so much to him. “We have been seen as sometimes to be all about revelry, all about celebration and joy, which it is at its root.”

Montano describes masquerade as a practice capable of allowing participants to temporarily leave their individual identities behind. On the road, thousands of people sing the same lyrics and experience the music together. His hope is for outsiders to encounter the sound firsthand rather than understand it solely through recordings. “I think soca music does everything and you have to really experience it,” he said. “And I want people to understand that there is something magical happening.”

His interest now also extends to what younger Caribbean musicians might do with the access his generation fought to create. Montano wants artists to recognize commonality between the islands without erasing what distinguishes them. He also believes soca can speak to people dealing with problems far removed from Carnival.

After 44 years of performing, his motivation has become increasingly tied to what listeners tell him about his work. “Firstly, gratitude,” Montano noted. “Internally, gratitude keeps me going because I’m really grateful for the life that I lived.” What remains valuable to him is hearing from someone who found something useful in a song or performance. “Most importantly, that inspiration that I give to others, there’s a level of fuel in that,” he said.

With Journey of a Soca King now presenting his history in Brooklyn and Like Ah Boss preserving a decade of his life on film, Montano has two records of how far the mission has traveled. He still approaches the work as unfinished.

“Waking up every day and having the ability to go in the studio and meet with other writers and producers and produce something that came from the inspiration of the ether and share it with others is one that I enjoy,” he said, “and that keeps me there.”