From a Portuguese marching band to “I'm Like a Bird”

Nelly Furtado was born in 1978 in Victoria, British Columbia, to parents from São Miguel Island in the Azores who had immigrated in the late 1960s. She was named after the Soviet gymnast Nellie Kim. At four she was singing in Portuguese, and her first public performance was a duet with her mother in a church on Portugal Day. She learned trombone and ukulele, wrote her first songs at twelve, and as a teenager played in a Portuguese marching band. She spent eight summers working as a chambermaid with her mother.

After finishing school in 1996 she moved to Toronto to live with her sister and took a full-time job at an alarm company. She sang on a track for the hip-hop group Plains of Fascination and then formed a trip hop duo, Nelstar, with member Tallis Newkirk. But she felt the style was too segregated and did not show her personality or her voice, so she left and planned to move home. In 1997 she performed at the Honey Jam talent show, which led Gerald Eaton of The Philosopher Kings to approach her to write together, and with Brian West he helped her produce a demo.

Her debut, Whoa, Nelly! in 2000, was trip hop-influenced and spawned the top-ten Billboard Hot 100 singles “I'm Like a Bird” and “Turn Off the Light”. The first earned her a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Folklore in 2003 drew on her Portuguese heritage and did less well.

Then came Loose in 2006, with a reinvented image and sound, and over ten million copies sold. It brought the worldwide number ones “Promiscuous”, “Maneater”, “Say It Right” and “All Good Things (Come to an End)”. She followed with the Spanish-language Mi Plan, which won a Latin Grammy, and after going independent she released The Ride in 2017 on her own label and 7 in 2024. She has sold over 45 million records and was appointed a Commander of the Order of Prince Henry in 2014.