Singer/songwriter Nelly Furtado heavily credits her
ethnic background and childhood for culturally and crucially
spawning her creativity as a female and as an inspiring
musician. Born and raised in Victoria, British Columbia,
Canada, Furtado's working-class parents, whom are of
Portuguese decent, instilled a hardcore work ethic during
her upbringing. She spent eight summers working as a
chambermaid with her housekeeping mother, quickly realizing
what it meant to honestly make a living. She turned
to music for enjoyment, learning to play the guitar
and the ukulele, and listened to mainstream R&B
like Mariah Carey, TLC, Jodeci, Salt-N-Pepa, and Bell
Biv DeVoe. Later, she delved into her older brother's
collection of Radiohead, Pulp, Oasis, Portishead, the
Verve, and U2, pushing Furtado to fully embrace different
musical genres, specifically Brazilian music and material
by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Amalia Rodrigues. Hip-hop
was also a big catalyst in shaping Furtado's musical
appreciation. After high school, she headed to Toronto
where she worked at an alarm company by day and experienced
the music scene by night. She joined a hip-hop duo tagged
Nelstar, and this opportunity led Furtado back to her
hip-hop influences of De La Soul and Digable Planets.
This allowed her to get comfortable with writing her
own melodies and freestyle rhymes. When Furtado started
cutting loose at a local Toronto club during the week,
her musical aspirations began to swirl. Brian West and
Gerald Eaton, who were of the Canadian funk-pop group
the Philosopher Kings, were instantly impressed by her
strong sense of performing and asked to produce her
demo. During those sessions, Furtado created some of
the moving work which landed on her debut for Dreamworks;
these solid collaborations led to the pertinent introduction
of Nelly Furtado and the critical acclaim of her debut
Whoa Nelly!, released in fall 2000. A headling tour
of the U.S in spring 2001 sparked more interest from
fans and critics, and a spot on Moby's Area:One summer
tour allowed singles "I'm Like a Bird" and
"Turn Off the Light" to receive bigger praise.
Furtado's greatest achievement followed a year later
when she earned four Grammy nods, including "Song
of the Year" for "I'm Like a Bird." Folklore
appeared in November 2003, nearly two months after Furtado
gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Nevis.
Her third record, Loose, which featured appearances
from Juanes and {Timbaland} (who also produced more
than half of the album's tracks) was released in 2006.
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