A TOP Trinidadian artiste does not think the four bombings and kidnappings there will put a cloud on the upcoming Carnival activities.

Machel Montano, whose band X-tatik headlined the third night of the World Creole Music, said while the situation was negative, the country was striving to achieve

a balance and some positives would come from it.

"A lot of people are concerned about going out there and setting the right example and so on. And when Carnival time comes, even the criminals partying, so I don't think it's going to affect us. But you're going to see a lot of songs and a lot of calls and a lot of cries for them to stop the crime.

"We have a lot of lines in our songs talking about the positive parts

of our existence.

"I think that the problem is that we are a developing nation and Trinidad is on a high in terms of development right now, so we have to just develop spiritually and we just need to put the right messages in place for that," he said

Machel said he had already written five songs for his new album and said he would be dedicating some more time to it on his return from Dominica.

"I'm trying to do a lot of dancing songs so that people will want to dance and sing and a lot of uptempo songs. But more importantly, we trying to still make connections with the outside world. I'm trying to do more work with Dougie Fresh, more work with Wyclef John," Machel said.

He did not go into details about plans for Carnival 2K6, but said the entire ambience of the nature isle and the sulphur springs were energising and had given him some ideas.

Machel added that his counterparts were continuing to experiment with fusions in their quest to hit the international market and with a lot of new artistes breaking into the soca arena, they should be turning out material on par with this year's offerings.

Crediting the artistes and producers in Barbados for bringing music back into soca, he said he expected Bajans to be a major force at Carnival once again.

There was a glaring lack of Barbadian music and artistes in Trinidad this year, and Machel attributed it to the withholding of music for Crop-Over 2003 and the absence of the likes of Alison Hinds and Rupee.

He said that Waistline Shots by Mr DJ was currently riding at No. 4 on the Trinidadian charts and other artistes were getting good rotation as well.

Coverage of the ninth annual World Creole Music Festival held October 28-30 in Dominica was sponsored by Digicel.

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