We made many fine musical discoveries at last year’s SoundCity music festival, but one of the most impressive was Fatiniza, Dubai’s answer to Shakira. Their shared heritage – they’re both Columbian – may make that an obvious comparison, but it works on several levels: they both have incredibly powerful voices, a bucketload of stage presence and bring a Latin flair to their chosen genres. But while Shakira largely mines a healthy seam of Latina pop, Fatiniza digs rock.

And fine rock it is – it’s always good to see local musicians with material as well as stage presence. In fact, if we were going to point fingers at the local scene and choose which of the artists could plausibly make it into the pop charts, she’d be in there for sure. Just a little more experience on the stage and who knows where she could end up?

If you’ve always wanted to see a big band before they were famous, you could do a lot worse than take a chance on her – we reckon she’s really going places.

Fatiniza plays Double Decker, March 18, free.