Yvonne Webb

Meet new so­ca artiste Brit­ney Hen­ry, who wants to be known in the in­dus­try as Fia. The name means peace. Tall, at­trac­tive and pos­sess­ing an amaz­ing voice, Fia has as­pi­ra­tions of leav­ing a last­ing im­pres­sion on the na­tion with her 2010 de­but sin­gle called Jezebel. How­ev­er, the late re­lease of the song may have de­prived her the op­por­tu­ni­ty to im­pact on sev­er­al of the com­pe­ti­tions she au­di­tioned for, in­clud­ing the So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion in the pow­er So­ca cat­e­go­ry and the Ca­lyp­so Queen com­pe­ti­tion.

"I had hoped to en­ter every­thing, but by the time I got the CD, most of the au­di­tions had closed off," she ex­plained. Nev­er­the­less, Fia, 20, from the love­ly vil­lage of Brazil in East Trinidad, is not giv­ing up her dreams of be­com­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al so­ca star. "I have a great pas­sion for mu­sic. I love en­ter­tain­ing. When I am on stage, it's like I am in a world of my own," said the singer, one of the top 10 fi­nal­ists in the Dig­i­cel Ris­ing Star 2007 com­pe­ti­tion. An ac­com­plished pan play­er, mod­el and Best Vil­lage Queen fi­nal­ist, Fia has al­so graced the stage in dra­mat­ic pro­duc­tions dur­ing her years at Brazil High. A gift­ed vo­cal­ist, she has been singing com­pet­i­tive­ly from her pri­ma­ry school days at the St Joseph Gov­ern­ment school but her forte has al­ways been R&B and slow jams.

She dis­cov­ered her abil­i­ty to per­form our in­dige­nous mu­sic when she ac­cept­ed an in­vi­ta­tion from a friend to a Scout­ing for Tal­ent ses­sion, or­gan­ised by the Moru­ga Com­mu­ni­ty Net­work (MCN) last Au­gust. "I nev­er dab­bled much in ca­lyp­so or so­ca, but you know, that's our cul­ture and I love Fay Ann, De­stra, Machel, Shur­wayne, so I am ac­cus­tomed to the mu­sic." About that ex­pe­ri­ence, which launched her so­ca ca­reer, Fia said, "Ex­ec­u­tive pro­duc­er Pe­ter Wat­son liked what he heard and every­thing just took off from there. He got me song writer, Je­re­my Ro­driguez, and stu­dio time was or­gan­ised." Jezebel, a break­away, is on the Ju­nior "Ibo" Joseph Danc­ing Dread Stu­dios la­bel. She as­sured this is not her first and last hit, but the first of many to come.

Arrange­ments are be­ing made to have her per­form at a num­ber of oth­er Car­ni­val events in the Caribbean, as well as Labour Day in Brook­lyn. Aim­ing for the skies, Fia said she is in­ter­est­ed in be­com­ing a flight at­ten­dant and will soon be pur­su­ing stud­ies in lan­guages as well as in the hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try. "But that is my plan B. My plan A is mu­sic and I think the time is right. "I know we have great artistes who have put Trinidad and To­ba­go on the map in terms of our mu­sic, but I want to win a Gram­my award for so­ca, for my coun­try. "I want the world to know about so­ca. I want it to be­come as big as R&B and hip hop. Once I have the right peo­ple around me, I know I could do it." Keep reach­ing, Fia.