One year after celebrating his marriage to longtime sweetheart Renee, soca superstar Machel Montano has just released The Wedding Album, a new LP inspired by the couple’s union and, more broadly, the spirit of partnership.
The 17-track project features collaborations with notable Caribbean, American and African music stars including Vybz Kartel, Teddy Riley, Afro B and DJ Tunez. Lauryn Hill, who featured Montano as an opening act during her Diaspora Calling tour in 2016, turns up for two different interludes on the project. Other featured artists include Nigeria’s Bankulli, Haitian-American singer/songwriter Stacy Barthe, J-Stylz (of Blackstreet), Saint Lucia’s Lu City, and fellow Trinidadian soca stars Voice and Hey Choppi.
The project comes almost exactly one year and one month after “The Wedding,” the last edition of Machel’s annual Machel Monday concert was held in Trinidad. Besides publicly celebrating the couple’s nuptials, that concert — which featured guests ranging from Doug E. Fresh to Motto to Tarrus Riley, as well as many of the artists featured on The Wedding Album — concluded a 10-year run of events held annually on the Monday before Trinidad Carnival. The Wedding Album is a fitting start to the next chapter of Montano’s decades-long career as he’s moved beyond the seasonal soca compilations of his past to create a broad-ranging, global album.
Stream The Wedding Album below on Apple Music.
