Top 10 Fascinating Facts about Nelly Furtado

Photo by Wikimedia Commons – Wikimedia 

Top 10 Fascinating Facts about Nelly Furtado

Nelly was born on December 2, 1978, in Victoria, British Colombia. She is a Canadian singer and songwriter. She began performing at the age of four and would sing in Portuguese.

She began playing musical instruments at nine years old, she played instruments Trombone, and Ukulele in later years she advanced to the keyboard and guitar. As a teenager, she performed in a Portuguese marching band.

She spent eight summers working as a chambermaid with her mother and siblings. After she was acknowledged, she sold over 40 million records worldwide. She is one of the most successful Canadian artists. She gained fame when she made her debut album Whoa Nelly! in 2000.

1. Her Career

In 1997, she performed at the Honey Jam Talent Show.  Her performance attracted an opportunity for her to write with Gerald Eaton (singer of The Philosopher Kings), he and fellow kings helped her produce a demo. The music she recorded was sent to all kinds of record companies by her attorney, Chris Taylor. 

She eventually landed a record deal with DreamWorks Records in 1999. Furtado was later able to produce her debut album Whoa, Nelly!  which was released in October 2000. 

2. Her Most Famous Song

Photo by Wikimedia Commons – Wikimedia 

Her song Promiscuous hit number one in the United States and the United Kingdom. This wasn’t her first song to give her attention but it was enough to make her known to crowds in countries that were way ahead in terms of music culture. 

3. Furtado and Justin Timberlake

In 2007, Furtado and Justin Timberlake were featured in a song called Give it to me which later became number one, making it her third number-one single in the U.S  and second in the UK. 

In 2008, she collaborated with James Morrison on a song called Broken Strings. The song was released on December 8, the song hit number two on the UK Singles Chart.

She ventured out of the UK and U.S singers and in 2008 she sang with an Italian group Zero Assoluto. Their song together was released in Italy, France, and Germany but the video was shot in Barcelona. 

4. Charities She Has Participated In

Photo by Wikimedia Commons – Wikimedia 

On the 27th of September 2011, she announced that she was giving one million to Free The Children’s effort to build girls’ schools in the Maasai region of Kenya.

She is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism and hosted a program on MTV about AIDS.

5. The Artistry

Photo by Wikimedia Commons – Wikimedia 

Furtado’s music has been influenced by her current residence. She began listening to music at the age of five and discovered new genres.

She didn’t wait for the internet to revolve and learn about the world of music, she did it for herself and taught herself new things about it and how to appreciate the art that music brings to the world.

6. Breakdown Of Her Tours

From 2001 to 2002, she performed in Europe, America, and Australasia all in the course of 13months.

She was also the opening act for David Gray. She took a break the whole of 2003 and in the next year, she hit the road again for her Come As You Are Tour. Her most recent tour was in 2017, she went on her Summer Tour which was a great success.

7. Experimenting with Filmography

The singer has appeared in quite a number of shows over the course of her career. She has been spotted in shows like Big Brother Brasil 10 where she performed live. 

Another great example is Roswell -which is a fiction television series- where she performed her song ‘I’m Like A Bird’ but that didn’t stop her from acting in CSI: NY as Ava a professional criminal accused of murder.

8. Personal Life

Photo by Wikimedia Commons – Wikimedia 

She was in a relationship with Jasper Gathunia who was a close friend for many years and on September 20, 2003, Nelly and Jasper introduced their daughter Nevis Chetan to the world.

However, after four years, the couple called it quits in 2005. She later got married to Demacio Castellon in 2008 but they got divorced in 2016.

9. Her First Fame

She first gained fame with her trip hop-inspired debut album, Whoa, Nelly! (2000), which was a critical and commercial success that spawned two top-10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, “I’m Like a Bird” and Turn Off the Light.

The first of the two singles won her a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Furtado’s introspective folk-heavy 2003 second album, Folklore, explored her Portuguese roots.

Its singles received moderate success in Europe, but the album’s underperformance compared to her debut was regarded as a sophomore slump.

10. The Best of Nelly

Furtado’s debut Spanish album, Mi Plan was released with the first single, “Manos Al Aire Hands in the Air. She had formed her own record label, Nelstar, in conjunction with the Canadian independent label group Last Gang Labels.

The first act signed to Nelstar is Fritz Helder & the Phantoms. Manos al Aire was released on the new label. The second, third, and fourth singles were Más, Mi Plan, and Bajo Otra Luz respectively.

Furtado won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Album for Mi Plan. She is the first Portuguese-Canadian to win a Latin Grammy award. 

Lifestyle, her planned fourth English studio album, was not released during the summer of 2010 in favor of the second leg of her Mi Plan Tour.

To promote the tour in Brazil, on March 24, 2010, Furtado made a “VIP Pocket Show” on the reality show program Big Brother Brasil 10 from Rede Globo, the country’s leading channel.

Furtado participated in the live DVD recording of the Brazilian singer Ivete Sangalo in Madison Square Garden on September 4, 2010.

Furtado released Mi Plan Remixes featuring 12 tracks of remixed hits from Mi Plan. This album included the Original Spanglish Version of “Fuerte”, her final release from Mi Plan.

Furtado made a guest appearance on Canadian singer k-os’s new album Yes!, collaborating alongside Saukrates on the song “I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman”, released in early July 2009.

Nelly Furtado also made a guest appearance on Tiësto’s single Who Wants to Be Alone on his new album Kaleidoscope.