Nelly Furtado

Nelly Kim Neto Furtado was born on December 2, 1978 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She is a Canadian singer, songwriter and actress. Furtado’s future musical success seemed assured: her family, of Portuguese descent, was very musical. Her mother, Maria Manuela, was a church choir singer and her father, António José was a big fan of the Portuguese music called fado.

 

In another sense, the fame and fortune Furtado has achieved must have seemed impossible when, as a child, she accompanied her mother on her job as a housekeeper.

 

Her parents are Maria Manuela Furtado and Antonio José Furtado. Nelly has a sister, Lisa Anne Furtado, and a brother, Michael Anthony Furtado.

 

Nelly’s big break through occurred when she was 18; Furtado entered a talent show for young female urban performers held in Toronto, named the Honey Jam. Her performance caught the eye of the manager of the Philosopher Kings, a funk-pop group. Furtado recorded a track with the help of Gerald Eaton and Brian West (of the Philosopher Kings).

 

Impressed with what they heard, Eaton and West persuaded Furtado to return to Toronto to do more tracks. Their work paid off when Furtado landed a record contract with DreamWorks Records and eventually recorded her debut album, Whoa Nelly!

 

In Toronto September 20, 2003, Furtado gave birth to daughter Nevis Chetan with former boyfriend Jasper Gahunia.Daughter Nevis was named after the island on which she was conceived. 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 their daughter Nevis. In a June 2006 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 stated that she was “straight, but very open-minded”. In November 2006, Furtado revealed that she once turned down $500,000 to pose fully clothed in Playboy. On July 19, 2008, Furtado married sound engineer Demacio Castellon.

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In year 2002, Furtado appeared on the song “Thin Line”, on underground hip hop group Jurassic 5’s album Power in Numbers.The same year, Furtado provided her vocals to the Paul Oakenfold’s song “The Harder They Come” from the album Bunkka and also made the song “These words are my own”.

 

She also had collaboration with Colombian artist Juanes, in the song “Fotografia” where she showed her diversity of yet another language. Furtado was also featured in “Breathe” from Swollen Members “Monsters in the Closet” release; the video for “Breathe,” directed by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, won the 2003 Western Canadian Music Awards Outstanding Video and MuchVIBE Best Rap Video.Furtado’s second album, Folklore, was released in November 2003.

 

Furtado hosted a program about AIDS on MTV, which also featured guests Alicia Keys and Justin Timberlake. On September 27, 2011, Furtado announced during Free the Children’s We Day Toronto, that she was giving $1,000,000  to free the Children’s effort to build girls’ schools in the Maasai region of Kenya.

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