Listen carefully and you will discover an amazing musical kinship: The melody and arrangement at the start of Nelly Furtado’s superhit «I’m Like A Bird» sounds strikingly like that of Nek's megahit «Laura non c’è». Neither have plagiarised the other, yet the similarities in their music make it impossible to avoid comparing the two prodigies: Furtado, the daughter of immigrants who single-mindedly blazed a trail from the Canadian province of British Columbia to international fame. And Nek, the Italian charmer who is modernising Italo-pop with his creative versatility.

Zeno van Essel