Nelly Kim Furtado (born December 2, 1978) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, record producer, and instrumentalist, who also holds Portuguese citizenship. Furtado came to fame in 2000 with the release of her debut album Whoa, Nelly!, which featured her breakthrough Grammy Award-winning single “I’m like a Bird”. After becoming a mother and releasing the less commercially successful Folklore (2003), she returned to prominence in 2006 with the release of Loose and its hit singles “Promiscuous”, “Maneater”, “Say It Right”, and “All Good Things (Come to an End)”.

Furtado is known for experimenting with different instruments, sounds, genres, languages, and vocal styles. This diversity has been influenced by her wide-ranging musical taste and her interest in different cultures.

Furtado’s third album was released in June 2006. She named it Loose after the spontaneous, creative decisions she made while creating the album.

Some have labeled her a “sellout” for seemingly abandoning her folk and rock roots in favour of hip hop and R&B, while others have criticized her for attempting to “sex up” her music and appearance to sell more records. In this album, primarily produced by Timbaland, Furtado experiments with sounds from R&B, hip hop, and 1980s music.

She categorized the album’s sound as punk-hop, described as “modern, poppy, spooky” and as having “a mysterious, after-midnight vibe… extremely visceral”. She attributed the youthful sound of the album to the presence of her two-year-old daughter.

Four lead singles were released in different regions of the world: the Spanish reggaeton-influenced “No Hay Igual” (featuring Calle 13), the hip-hop “Promiscuous” (featuring Timbaland), for which she won a 2006 Billboard Music Award for Pop Single of the Year, the Latin “Te Busqué” (featuring Juanes), and the dark pop single “Maneater”.

Loose has become the most successful album of Furtado’s career so far. It reached number one in several countries including the United States and Canada, and it included the hit singles “Promiscuous”, “Maneater”, “Say It Right”, and “All Good Things (Come to an End)”. The album received generally positive reviews from critics, with some citing the “revitalising” effect of Timbaland on Furtado’s music, and others calling it “slick, smart and surprising”.

In 2007, Furtado and Justin Timberlake were featured on Timbaland’s single “Give It to Me”, which became her third number-one single in the U.S. and second in the UK.

On February 16, 2007, Furtado embarked on the Get Loose Tour. She returned in March 2007 to her hometown of Victoria to perform a concert at the Save-On Foods Memorial Centre. In honour of her visit, local leaders officially proclaimed March 21, 2007, the first day of spring, as Nelly Furtado Day.

On April 1, 2007, Furtado was a performer at and host of the 2007 Juno Awards in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She won all five awards for which she was nominated, including Album of the Year and Single of the Year. Furtado appeared on stage at the Concert for Diana at Wembley Stadium in London on July 1, 2007, where she performed “Say It Right”, “Maneater”, and “I’m like a Bird”.

In 2007, Furtado, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake were featured on Lil Wayne’s upcoming album Tha Carter III. Furtado also appeared in the video for Nickelback’s “Rockstar”.

In September, 2007, MTV: Buzzworthy chose Furtado as the Artist of the Week, and gave an exclusive freestyle performance of “Going Away” with the Somalian-Canadian rapper K’naan.

On September 9, 2007, Furtado performed at the MTV Video Music Awards awards with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake, where she sang “Do It” mixed with “The Way I Are”, “LoveStoned” and “Give It to Me”. In October 2007 Furtado was nominated for three MTV Europe Music Awards, and she won the “Album of the Year” award.

After Furtado’s success in her third album, Loose, she released her first live DVD under the name Loose the Concert which included her greatest hits of 2007 and 2006 as a live videos such as “Promiscuous”, “Maneater”, “Say It Right” and “All Good Things (Come to an End)” . Loose has been used to advertise the newly released iPod classic appearing in commercials and even on the box.

Last year, Nelly Furtado leaked plans to Flare magazine regarding a song she was set to duet for Kylie Minogue’s return. However the song was not featured on her album X but Minogue says the aforementioned song “is still outstanding” and has plans to pursue it. She said “I am looking forward to getting in the studio and doing it because I know Nelly and I would have a great time together.”

On September 20, 2003 in Toronto, Furtado gave birth to a daughter, Nevis, whose father is DJ Jasper Gahunia. Furtado and Gahunia, who had been good friends for several years, remained together for four years until their breakup in 2005. Furtado told Blender magazine that they continue to be good friends and jointly share responsibility of raising Nevis.

In June 2006, in an interview with Genre magazine, when asked if she had “ever felt an attraction to women”, Furtado replied “Absolutely. Women are beautiful and sexy.” Some considered this an announcement of bisexuality, but in August 2006, she confirmed that she was “straight, but very open-minded”. In November 2006, Furtado revealed that she once turned down US$500,000 to pose unclothed in Playboy.

In July 2007, it was reported that Furtado is engaged to Cuban sound engineer, Demacio “Demo” Castellon, who worked with her on Loose.

During her teenage years, Furtado embraced many musical genres, listening heavily to mainstream R&B, hip hop, alternative hip hop, drum and bass, trip hop, world music (including Portuguese fado, Brazilian bossa nova, and Indian music), and a variety of others. Her influences have included Jeff Buckley, Janet Jackson, Oasis, Caetano Veloso, Esthero, Amalia Rodrigues, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Cornershop, TLC, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Digable Planets, De La Soul, Radiohead, Madonna, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Verve, U2, Enya, and Beck.

Furtado’s music has also been influenced by her current residence, Toronto, which she calls “the most multicultural city in the entire world” and a place where she “can be any culture”. Regarding Toronto’s cultural diversity, she has said that she did not have to wait for the Internet revolution to learn about world music; she began listening to it at the age of five and continues to discover new genres.

“ I always know there’s a new genre left to discover. For me, it’s like a metaphor for life. I feel like if you can get down with any style of music, you can get down with any style of person. So it’s fun for me—I get to expose my fans to different vibes and they, in turn, open their minds too. I’m always undergoing mind-opening. ”

Furtado began acting in school plays in middle school. She appeared on the episode “Some Buried Bones” of CSI: NY as Ava Brandt, a master-thief and victim of domestic abuse. She also guest starred on an episode of the day time soap opera One Life to Live, on which she performed some of her songs in a local club with Saukrates. Furtado participated in the hit Portuguese soap opera Floribella.

She had stated in an interviews on planete rap, a French radio station, that she has taken up acting classes when she is in Toronto and also had working on a movie which has been prosponed.