- Born
- Birth nameNelly Kim Furtado
- Height5′ 2½″ (1.59 m)
- Nelly Kim Furtado was born on December 2, 1978 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada to Maria Manuela Furtado (née Neto), a motel cleaner & António José Furtado, a stonemason. 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.
Furtado's third album, Loose (2006), was a smash hit and became her best selling album with more than 12 million copies sold worldwide, also making it one of the best selling albums of the 2000s. Considered a radical image reinvention, Furtado continued to explore her Latin heritage while leaning heavier into hip hop. The album spawned four successful number one singles worldwide; Promiscuous, Maneater, Say It Right & All Good Things (Come to an End). Her Timbaland collaboration, Give It to Me (2007) in the same era also topped the charts in the US and overseas. Furtado's critically acclaimed duet with James Morrison, Broken Strings, also topped the charts in Europe in 2008.
She released her first Spanish language album, Mi Plan, in 2009, which won her a Latin Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Album. In 2012, Furtado released her nostalgia inspired fifth album The Spirit Indestructible. Furtado split with her management and went independent thereafter, releasing her indie-pop sixth album, The Ride (2017) under her own label, Nelstar Entertainment.
Furtado has sold over 40 million records worldwide, making her one of the most successful Canadian artists. She has won several awards throughout her career, including one Grammy Award from seven nominations, one Latin Grammy Award, ten Juno Awards, one BRIT Award, one Billboard Music Award, one MTV Europe Music Award, one World Music Award, and three Much Music Video Awards. Furtado has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame, and was awarded Commander of the Order of Prince Henry on February 28, 2014 in Toronto by Aníbal Cavaco Silva, the then-President of Portugal.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Malik_I_R
- SpouseDemacio Castellon(July 19, 2008 - 2016) (divorced)
- Children
- ParentsAntónio José FurtadoMaria Manuela Furtado
- Is Canadian of Portuguese descent from the Azores.
- Her song "Força", in which she sang in both English and Portuguese, was the official theme of the Euro 2004 (European Soccer Football Championships) organized in Portugal, in which Championship reached the second place.
- Learned to play trombone and ukulele at age nine, keyboards at age 11 and began composing at age 13.
- According to an MTV interview, she self-taught herself how to sing by listening to Mariah Carey albums.
- Come-back song from her new album "Loose": "Man-Eater" reaches N.r 1 in the British Charts.
- I put pressure on myself to be musically fresh, which is different from being trendy or being current. I like a fusion of sounds, just as long as it's funky.
- I remember being five years old and it being like there was an orchestra in my mind and there was this soundtrack playing. I didn't know where it was coming from, but it was there. What I'm saying is that I tried on the pop hat for awhile and it was fun. But I'm ready to try new things.
- This idea that artists are always going to make the right choices and do the right thing is kind of a falsehood. That's what my songs are about. Falling down and getting back up again.
- My long-term goal is to be independent, quite frankly. I got quite spoiled doing Mi Plan, and in the context of my English projects I've had a lot of creative freedom. It's quite addictive, that creative independence. You start to crave it more and more as you move forward.
- I've come to my rose-colored nostalgia moment, where I'm celebrating home. It's taken many years to get to the point where I feel lucky.
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