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Book Nelly Furtado

Just like she proclaimed it through the song that introduced her to the world, Nelly Furtado truly “Is Like a Bird.”

Born in Victoria, Canada, to Portuguese descendant parents, Nelly was raised within a culturally rich environment, very close to her Latin roots: Portuguese night school, traditional dances workshops, marching bands, and religious festivities were common activities throughout her childhood. All that cultural immersion, and the deep working ethics she learned from her parents at an early age, helped her develop a unique identity and start a prosperous musical career when she moved to Toronto right after finishing high school. She started to write her own songs when she joined the hip-hop duo Nelstar, but her wings really started expanding in preparation for the big flight when musicians Brian West and Gerard Eaton, from the funk pop band The Philosopher Kings, decided to record a demo of Nelly’s songs that ended up on the desks of DreamWorks Records, which quickly realized the potential of the then teenager and released her first album, Whoa, Nelly!, in 2000.

Her multi-cultural sound proved to be intensely popular and the following year Nelly went on an extensive headlining tour around North America, mostly thanks to the tremendous success of singles “I’m Like a Bird” and “Turn Off the Light,” which helped the album to reach platinum status several times and also to get four nominations at the 2002 Grammy Awards. Nelly Furtado ended up taking the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “I’m Like a Bird.”

Her second album, Folklore, was released on November 2003, two months after Nelly gave birth to her daughter Nevis. For many, this is the album where she displays her best vocals and her most eclectic sounds. With Folklore, Nelly took her musical expression to the next level, confirming her creative capacity with songs like “Powerless (Say What You Want),” the ballad “Try” or “Força”, which became the official anthem of the 2004 European Football Championship.

She waited 3 years to reinvent herself in 2006 with the release of Loose, an imminently danceable album produced almost in its entirety by beats genius Timbaland, who, under Nelly’s inspiration, created an energizing and irresistible mix of pop, R&B, and super danceable hip-hop that catapulted her career back to the top of the charts around the globe. “Promiscuous” became an instant hit, earning her the number one spot at the Billboard Hot 100 while the album debuted atop the charts upon its release.

Having harvested uncountable awards, record selling plaques and many other accomplishments with Whoa, Nelly!, Folklore, and Loose, three albums in English, her language –and luckily for her, the commercial language of the world- anybody would think that, in the middle of a great globalization, Nelly Furtado would come back with a fourth record carefully and meticulously trying to keep her status of a top international artist and personality, without compromising that status with a crazy idea like, say, producing an album completely in a foreign language and releasing it worldwide… right? Yeah, right…

This bird of music keeps flying, unrestrained, around the world, and now wants to fly singing a whole album in Spanish.

Nelly learned Spanish at the age of 14 and she loves singing it ever since. “The world is changing,” she says, “and after 10 years recording in English, I hit a wall. I felt this was the moment to make the dream -of doing an album completely in Spanish, and releasing it worldwide- come true.” She also says that this is a way of giving intensity and identity to her Latin culture and at the same time giving sensations, feelings and rhythms to the non-Spanish speaking world. That was her plan, and that plan has resulted in her most pop record yet: Mi Plan.

Mi Plan is Nelly Furtado’s fourth album and her first collection of pop songs in Spanish. It is her soul flying like a bird and singing to the world, only this time she is doing it in Spanish.

"I have always adored performing in both Portuguese and Spanish, which both are
Latin languages. I can emote better in a Latin language, so the songs have turned out more personal and intimate."

Through the diversity and singularity of her music, the songs in this album explore around the realms of love and the rhythm of the everyday life. The record is light and fun, and the collaboration with several Latin artists –all of them very special to her- is what makes this album extremely exciting.

As with all her albums, Nelly wrote and co-produced Mi Plan with the collaboration of great writers and producers that she personally chose, including a young and little known Cuban singer-songwriter named Alex Cuba caught her attention when a friend made her listen to his CD. Shortly after discovering his music, Alex Cuba became her right hand during the creative process of Mi Plan. “I paint the picture and he frames it.” That is how Nelly describes her relationship with Cuba.

In Mi Plan, the freshness and creative passion of Nelly Furtado find a catalytic for transcendence with the magnificent collaborations she has chosen this time: the voice, humbleness, and enthusiasm of Josh Groban in “Silencio”; the timeless spirit and jazz-flamenco elevation of African-Spanish Concha Buika in the song “Fuerte”; the strong but delicate voice and presence of Mexican crooner Alejandro Fernandez in “Sueños;” the audacity and songwriting magic of Mexican pop star Julieta Venegas along with the coolness and wit of Spanish hip-hop wonder La Mala Rodriguez in “Bajo Otra Luz”; the inspirational energy and poetry of Dominican Republic’s biggest star ever, Juan Luis Guerra, who co-wrote “Como Lluvia”; and the amazing rhythmic and melodic expression of Cuban Alex Cuba in the song that gives the album its title.

The songs “Suficiente Tiempo”, “Más”, “Vacación”, “Fantasmas”, “Feliz Cumpleaños”, and the first single of the album, “Manos al Aire” –song that explores the vulnerability of a person’s feelings when one has fallen in love-, complete the collection of new jewels Nelly Furtado has crafted in Spanish for the whole world.

From Canada, via Portugal, through the language of Spain, Nelly Furtado comes back with her most pop record to date, full with dreams and rhythms that pay tribute to the beauty and cultural diversity of this planet.

The bird who does not know where its soul is has found a new home, for now.