From traditional pop classics, urban dance tracks and steamy Latin love ballads, Nelly Furtado's body of work makes a solid argument as one of the most diverse
discographies in pop-music history. Which, in part, is why I virtually
jumped at the chance to interview the renowned Canadian songstress.
That, along with the fact that her music has been there as a spiritual
guide throughout the majority of my turbulent 22-year-old life. Since
her 2000 “I’m Like a Bird,” debut the singer-songwriter has diversified
her channels of creativity by rejecting limitations. Along her
never-ending journey to defy the boundaries of genre, she’s written
tracks that make you jump to your feet just as often as those meant to
pick you up off the ground. In her revealing discussion, Nelly speaks
endearingly on re-establishing herself as an artist, defining moments
with her peers, and her sixth studio album, ‘The Ride’, set to debut at
the end of next month. Following her pattern of not actually following a
particular pattern, Furtado plans to show her fans yet another side of
her complex artistry. If the album is as honest and pure as her
intentions, we may be in for ‘The Ride’ of our lives.
Ashley Vance: It’s been about 4 years since you’ve released a
full-length project. Talk to us a bit about the path leading up to The Ride and how the journey has treated you.
Nelly Furtado: Honestly, it’s been a really interesting 4 or 5 years.
I really put a lot of me into this album, and it’s kind of interesting
because I’ve been writing songs since I was a little girl, so my albums
really are a reflection of me entirely because I write my material and I
live my material. This album is really raw. Lyrically, I went through a
huge life shift, which I like to call a paradigm shift. I had been
living on fast forward for a long time and finally decided to take apart
the pieces of my life that seemed excessive on different levels and
that seemed blurry.
I severed a tie with a business partner and father figure that I’d
had for almost two decades. Once that unraveled, I started shifting a
lot of things in my life and created a deeper kind of simplicity. I did
some fun things; took up play-writing classes, started working at my
friend’s vinyl shop for fun, started taking sewing classes and pottery
classes. I have a 13-year old daughter, so I’m also a very hands-on mom.
I also, for a while, was very busy. I had my own imprint, I was
working on developing other artists, and I realized that I had lost the
true essence of my own artistry which was really just a free spirited,
Bohemian girl who just liked to sit in a living room, playing a guitar
and singing a song, ya know? [laughs]
Definitely!
Nelly Furtado: I kind of unraveled the accouterments of a pop career [laughs]. When
you travel, you move with a lot of people and you tour the world. I
signed my record deal when I was 20-years-old. I already had a child by
the time I was 25. I went through the trials, I guess. Eventually, life
catches up with you since you can’t live in fast forward all the time
and these songs reflect that. I have a song called “Carnival Games,”
which is literally about the fact that when you’re at a carnival with
the pretty lights, the fun games, and a ferris wheel in front of you,
you’re not really thinking about life outside the carnival. It’s kind of
like, that lyric, “If you spend enough cash at the carnival games, you’ll have a prize when you walk away.” But then, you’ll never know what winning is really like at all.
I have another song called “Tap Dancing,” which is literally about
how as an entertainer you’ve been praised for entertaining people since
you were a baby. It’s almost like my sad clown song because when you
walk on stage and take off your makeup and your costume, you may still
find yourself still wanting to entertain your family and friends and not
really realizing that your life also needs moments of stillness and
quiet to really grow as a person.
I have another song called “Live,” which is like, “you know what? I’m tired of being a good girl. I’m tired of doing everything right. I’m tired of proving people.”
I don’t want to live getting what I need and never what I want. We live
in a world where all the information is there for us to make perfect
choices 24 hours a day, but at the end of the day we’re human and we
just want to live out our lives and make those mistakes. Because even
though we end up with mud on our face, we write a good poem about it and
feel the beauty in that moment. So, I don’t know. It’s kind of like
coming to age isn’t really the right phrase. I like to call it a moment
of distilling. A sobering, you know? [laughs]
[laughs] So kind of like working with a long-term hangover?
Nelly Furtado: Yeah! And it’s kind of rare too, when you’re life and the themes on your album actually reflect what the music sounds like.
John Congleton had a huge hand in production, correct? How
did that come about, and what was it like to collaborate with someone
with such an esteemed track record?
Nelly Furtado: I chose John Congleton to produce knowing he had never produced a pop
album before. He’d only done alternative, punk, and modern. I met him
through Annie Clark of St. Vincent, who I’m a huge fan of. I met her in
Japan on tour and she introduced me to John because I asked her to. I
said, you know, I really love the work on your albums I have to give
credit to your producer, and she graciously introduced us. I found
myself alone in Dallas, TX at John’s converted funeral home studio in
the middle of nowhere.
Oh, wow!
Nelly Furtado: He’s the type of producer who doesn’t really care about commercial
success. He doesn’t care about any of those things. All he cares about
is artistry. He was really firm with me in saying, “this album, if we do this right, could really remind people that you’re an artist and have been for a really long time.”
And I thought to myself, okay, here’s someone that I feel challenged by
and I want to make sure he feels that this is worthwhile, so I’m going
to dig a little deeper. The day I brought him the song “Pipe Dreams,” I
played the song on my guitar and just kind of sang it. I’d written the
song in Kenya. I developed a relationship with a community of girls
there and their families and we’d share music together. Anyway, I wrote
the song on this water walk where the mothers kind of show everyone
where you can get water from before they had a well system, so it was
kind of this moment. “Pipe Dreams” is about not wanting fiction anymore
or fantasy. Just give me reality. Give me reality in my relationships.
Give me reality from myself when I look in the mirror. So, when I sang,
John was listening to me play the demo and he kind of out loud just
said, “Oh shit.” [laughs] It was kind of like “wow, she wrote something really good here!”
All of your albums throughout your career have had a distinctively different dynamic and sound, specifically Whoa, Nelly!, Folklore, and Loose. Why so? Was this done purposely or was this you experimenting and finding your own sound within the industry?
Nelly Furtado: I think I’m just that quirky person! I’ve always been an eclectic
person. I’ve had a very odd upbringing. Here I am, this child of
Portuguese immigrant parents, growing up in a British colony called
Victoria. It was kind of suburban, but on Sunday at Portuguese school I
had this very rich cultural life. I learned to speak the language, I
danced in Folklore groups, but then my friends and I loved hip-hop. It
was just a really mixed bag of influences. I think my music reflects
those influences. I also think that I believe music should be very
democratic. I feel like I don’t believe in limitations of genre at all.
You make the music connect to the source, it doesn’t matter the genre,
and you express yourself. I recently did an installation, sort of
performance art. I basically sat in a room and I wrote songs with 100
strangers. Some people, they had never written a song before. Basically
what my point was, was that we are all connected physically and that we
all have empathy inside of us. It’s the reason why the idea of the
collective conscious exists. That’s why we all connect with the same
songs sometimes. In that room I was trying to create moments with all of
these people that were not branded or recorded or captured on video
along with moments that proved the psychic connection between all of us
and the way that the unconscious plays into that and into songwriting.
It’s something I started when I was going to Kenya and playing songs
with the girls. I’d do songwriting workshops and we’d just write a song
in the moment, and I realized everyone has a song to sing.
To answer your question, the reason all of my albums sound different
is because I have a very low attention span [laughs]. I’m not really a
“joiner.”I did a 10k last year, and I knew I wasn’t going to join the
cult of running. I just knew I wanted to run. I feel comfortable in
different situations so, it’s kind of who I am. I’m a very free spirit.
Loose has to be one of our favorite albums from you.
From your vocals, to the songwriting, and all the way to the
production. That album actually solidified this musical relationship
that you have with Timbaland. The two of you are a mighty duo. What is a studio session like between the two of you? What has been your fondest memory?
Nelly Furtado: It’s fun that you’ve asked me this question because he has a new show called the Pop Game, and he invited me to help him launch the premier episode.
Really? That sounds awesome, are you excited?
Nelly Furtado: Yeah! Him and I are mentoring kids! I’m on the premier episode
meeting the kids and the moms and dads as we kind of sit there and
reminisce on Loose and performing together. But Timbaland and I
go back to the year 2001 when he sampled my voice on this Ms. Jade
record called “Ching Ching,” and he invited me to be on the Missy Elliott remix for “Get Ur Freak On.” With Loose,
we were able to get together in a really focused way and create
something really special. To be honest, it was the party of a lifetime.
We’d be in the studio from midnight to 6am in Miami, and I was in a
really free spirited mindset at the time. I think it’s because I’d just
finished nursing my daughter, so my body felt like it was my own again
after two years [laughs]. There was a certain type of freedom in the
air. I think we were just in the right place at the right time, and we
were really connecting in terms of the music we were listening to. We
both had something to prove! I think that makes it even more powerful
when you both have something to prove.
Let’s touch on this new project! The word on the street is
you won’t have any features on this album. Is this you making a
statement of being ballsy and independent, or are you more-so using this
as an opportunity to produce an album that’s solely centered on you?
Nelly Furtado: That’s a really good question because my last English album had a lot
of collaborations and my Spanish album had like eight collaborations!
So yeah, I’ve done the collaboration thing pretty heavy throughout my
career. I’m lucky to have very successful with crossover duet songs in
collaborations. But, it wasn’t even an option. It felt like this album
was so personal that it never entered my mind to have anybody on it. I
think I was so full of things to say that I didn’t need anyone to
compliment any of the songs. I really thinks it’s a simple as that.
It sounded very singular. We used all the same musicians. Dallas has
this amazing tradition of musicians who’ve grown up playing in the
church – organ players, clarinet players. So, I’ve got a lot of those
instruments on my album because we used the same people and team. Since
we had this cohesive little team, it really made sense that the vocals
kind of had a similarity about them.
You seem to be moving in a refreshing, new direction as
you’ve worked toward the release of this album. Tell me, how did the
video concept to “Pipe Dreams: come about?
Nelly Furtado: That’s actually the best story ever. I’d been approaching the
aesthetic of the album in this very organic kind of way. Right when I
got to Dallas, I called my friend who did the packaging for my Spanish
album. he’s like my little brother. I said, “You’ve got to come to Dallas! There’s something happen and I don’t know what it is, but it’s a great vibe!”
I just found Dallas to be so welcoming and the artistic community was
so welcoming to me. I met visual artists and musicians, and it was just
so organic and cool. A lot of people move to Dallas because there’s no
state tax and they can live an artist life at cheaper costs. I just fell
in love with the city. I featured this artist Samantha McCurdy on my
album cover. It’s her 3D stretch canvas artwork, and she did the entire
vinyl. We shot that maybe 2 years ago. We kind of featured all these
people we met in Dallas in the photo-shoot because we felt like we
should have a community essence to the project because it just felt like
the city was organic as a community. One of the artists in that is a
visual artist who actually created an original lyric zine that I’m
selling to my fans right now actually, online. It’s beautiful, original
artwork. He also contributed to my album artwork, but in addition to
this, I asked him to film a video for me. So I was in Dallas a couple
months ago creating a sound design project for an Art Basel installation
in collaboration with my friend Sheinina Raj, who did a show called
intercultural which featured self portraits of her in several different
traditional outfits as a meditation on race and identity. She’s of mixed
race, her fathers from India and her mother is British white. We put
together this collaborative sound installation with some of the pieces
with this technology called Soundwall where the sound comes from the
photograph! It’s actually really cool.
I flew to Dallas to work with Adam Pickrell, and since I was going to be there, I said, “Jake, let’s shoot a video for ‘Pipe Dreams’.”
And literally, we didn’t even know we were going to shoot it until 24
hours before. Adam and I were driving to his home studio, and I see
these pink signs in Lake Highlands area. I said, “Let’s stop here,”
so I went inside the house, and I realized that this home had once
belonged to a woman named Edna Sue and she hadn’t been seen since like
the 1950s. The home was full of these really cool artifacts from her
life, like hand carved wooden pens with her name and memorabilia. On a
whim, as we were leaving, we bought a few things and I asked the state
sales representative if we could shoot a video there the very next day,
and she said sure. They only charged us $100. It’s crazy how the most
spontaneous things become the most perfect things. You always forget
until that happens and it’s like, “Oh yeah! It’s supposed to be like this! It’s supposed to be spontaneous.”
The video was edited by another artist name Pierre Krause, and she’s
an amazing Dallas based creative. Dallas has probably some of the most
interesting and vibrant artists that I’ve seen in a long time. I just
love the aesthetic of it and I think Jake has a great eye.
Tell me a bit about your songwriting process. How do you
think working on this album helped you to continue to evolve as a
writer?
Nelly Furtado: The main takeaway for me was seeing beauty in everything. When you
allow yourself to be raw, to be naked, to write from that “hung-over
place” [laughs], I think you automatically start seeing beauty in
everything. I’ve got to say, I’ve been writing nonstop for the last four
years. It’s like something happened to me. I was putting these really
high expectations on myself like, “I’ve got to be the perfect mother, I’ve got to be the perfect business woman,” and then all of a sudden, it was like, “No.” I don’t have to be a perfect anything. I just have to be. What if I just be?
When you let yourself be, all of a sudden the writing is so natural and
you’re finding beauty in every puddle and every vignette. It’s all
beautiful, it’s all worthy of writing about. My process is weird though
because my lyric and melody often come at the same time. Melody and
lyric often come as a package deal, but not always. I use garage band, I
use voice notes on my phone. I do it the old fashioned way by sitting
down with paper and pen and a guitar.
I like to collaborate, too. A lot of songs John would just kind of
throw out there. I’m very open when it comes to writing, and I’m
constantly learning new things. Recently I wrote with this new band
called The Skins and another artist named Pangena, along with Zuri
Marley and Hodgy from Odd Future. We just got together and jammed for
three days straight on a side project, and what I noticed when I was
writing with them is that Bailey, one of the singers from The Skins, was
writing melodies for me that I’d never write for myself. So I think,
even if you like writing, you have to stay open minded and be open to
new ideas.
Over the past year or so, you’ve worked closely with Dev Hynes, creating “Hadron Collider” from Freetown Sound. How did your relationship come to fruition?
Nelly Furtado: I’ve got to say, Dev is one of my favorite people. He’s just such a
precious soul to me and I think meeting him was a really big part of my
journey over the last couple of years. David Byrne invited me to be
apart of this project called Contemporary Color and the movie
he made is coming out about it. Basically, he brought together 10
artists and 10 color guard groups from across the U.S. and Canada to
collaborate on a concert to be featured at the Barclay’s Center for two
nights and at the Luminato Festival in Toronto for two nights. It was
such a great, great group to be a part of. I was coming from this kind
of “pop” career, and everyone else came from alternative or other types
of genres. Honestly, I met Dev at rehearsal because David wanted
everyone to sing on each others sets. Dev was singing BGs for me and him
and I were like magnets. We said, “Hi, how are you? Here’s my number. Studio date tomorrow.”
He flew to Toronto and I booked a studio room, just following through
with action, and before you know it Dev and I were writing “Hadron
Collider” and singing. Those vocals that I did that night ended up on
his album and those were pretty much the demo vocals.
We were very inspired. We pulled up Romeo and Juliet, the
movie, our favorite scene where the little boy is singing our favorite
gospel song right over the edge of the church [laughs]. We wanted to
capture the poignancy of that movie and all of the amazing moments on
the soundtrack, so that’s kind of what “Hadron Collider” was inspired
by. It was also inspired by me telling Dev that me and him should have a
band called Hardron Collider to make him laugh! Overall, I would say
Dev was definitely like a mentor to me. I was exposed to an artist who
was literally living the creative life on his own terms, navigating
success on his own terms, and creating a life out of that that would
still keep him content and in touch with his soul. I really admired
that. I think Dev leads by example and that’s why he attracts some cool
artists into his vortex because he lived the real artist life. Nowadays,
it’s hard to live that life. I think we live in a very fast paced
world, and for me, he just kind of reminds me to slow down, take some
photographs, and write the song. That’s the most important thing.
If you had to choose, what period in the history of music has had the biggest influence on your overall artistry?
Nelly Furtado: I have to straight up say ’90s R&B and Hip-Hop. That’s the first
thing that comes to mind because my friends and I lived vicariously
through all those TLC and Salt N’ Peppa videos. That was our escape as
suburban kids with immigrant parents who were banded together through
music. We would get together at jams or hook up and write rhymes
together. For me, groups and acts like Mary J. Blige, Salt N’ Peppa and
TLC were my role models and icons in terms of not really seeing yourself
as a woman in this business but seeing yourself as a person. I think
that they set the tone for the duality, strength, positivity, and total
like, gumption.
In The Ride short film, you remarked that women are so powerful, “we tend to push other people’s buttons just by being ourselves.” As a woman working in a male dominated industry, why do you think that’s true?
Nelly Furtado: I think we’re still in the process. We’re still in the struggle.
We’re still fighting our way back to equality. Because I believe that
equality existed in history, even it was in civilizations in times we
don’t recall anymore. But, I do believe there was a time once upon a
time where we were equal. Truly and fully godesses. I think our
conceptual memory of this is present, but in the real world, because of
all the politics and all the paradigms, it just doesn’t exist. I finally
just read the “We Should All Be Feminists” essay. I used to read
feminist texts all the time but I hadn’t read a more current one. In a
way it just spelled it out. We have such a long way to go. Of course
we’re going to push buttons. Of course when we do things out of the box
or force people to see us as more than our bodies or our sexuality, we
impress our brains, conviction and strength on the world. That’s going
to cause havoc. But I think it’s exciting. I have a 13-year-old daughter
and I love the perceptive her and her friends have on the world, and I
love that they are able to discern fake from real. From what I see with
my own eyes in terms of creativity and where people are heading, I
really think the future is gender-less. I feel the future is even more
body positive and limitless. The boxes are going to become increasingly
irrelevant, and it’s wonderful. And I hope to be able to contribute to
that energy in whatever way I can.
As you mentioned in your short film, the music does seem to
take you to the “right place,” whether it be Pop, Urban, or Alternative.
What has it been like to color outside the lines of so many genres
throughout the course of your career?
Nelly Furtado: It’s been thrilling. I remember the first time that I wrote a song
when I was just a 17-year-old singer in a group in Toronto. I was just
this kid from Victoria, but I knew I had this special and unique way of
singing. And I remember when I got to work on the Missy Elliott remix
for “Get Ur Freak On” and people thinking I was a Jamaican boy because
people had never seen the “I’m Like A Bird” video [laughs]. And this is
like, pre-social media. I’ve prided myself on innovation from an early
age. I think it’s because my grandfather was a music composer. He was
obsessed with music to the point where his day was just different spurts
of inspiration. As my career went on, I was trying to make choices that
were consciously different. I remember when “I’m Like A Bird” was first
finished and the drums sounded a lot busier. I remember saying, “It’s not quite right. It’s not simple. We need to take out all these drums and just leave the kick and snare in the verses.” It’s that consciousness of how can I tweak things to make them a little more unique? The same thing happened with Loose.
At the time, my label wanted us to use a different mix because they
thought the sound was too dirty. But what I fought for was keeping that
garage “loose” sound because I knew that would help stand out from other
pop records at the time. And sure enough, I was right. If we’d changed
the mix, it wouldn’t have been the same album. I’m kind of a music nerd.
I’ve always been interested in doing things my own way. I’m
experimental by nature. I’m endlessly curious about people and sound. I
like puzzles. A challenge is a challenge.
Growth, Reflection and Acceptance are the three pillars you
chose to highlight in the short. How do these three periods relate to
the overall theme and the artist beneath this album?
Nelly Furtado: To grow, you have to have perspective. To grow, you have to learn
from your mistakes. So, I think taking the filter off the lens of my own
life helped me to see where I was. It helped me write from a very clear
space.
Wait, what’s the second one? [laughs]
Nelly Furtado: Reflection! In this case I had a lot of solitude and aloneness
because I kind of stripped away everything in my life. I was alone and
able to reflect. How better to hear your own voice than in an empty room
with it bouncing off the walls. Some of the reflection came afterwards.
The last day in the studio, I listened to the mixdown of “Carnival
Games,” and I just totally bawled in John’s studio and locked myself in
his little washroom where he keeps his Grammy awards [laughs]. I
realized that the studio has become an island for me to put myself back
together, you know? I went there to fix myself through testimonials. He
was my witness; John was there to testify all of my sins on the album.
That sounds so silly, but it’s basically like this redemption,
testifying of sins album.
And then, Acceptance! In the theme of acceptance, I went from writing
this song called “Phoenix” in rural England the day after I arrived. I
also flew there alone. I woke up in a cold sweat the night before, and
asked myself what I was doing there, in this little bed & breakfast
in rural England. I was taken by fear of the unknown. I kind of pulled
myself together, pulled out my laptop and started getting ready for the
studio. The next day I wrote “Phoenix.” So, I thought I was writing it
about other people, other strong people. Two years later, I finally
finished the vocal in the studio with John and my friend Wakeem was
there and he goes, “Hey Nel, you wrote that song for yourself didn’t you?” I looked at him and said, “yeah, I think I did.”
Two years later I’d accepted the fact that it was my own life raft I’d
written myself. It was my own life ring in an ocean to keep myself
afloat. I experienced this weird sensation of me soothing myself with
the song as a sang it, which was kind of cool. And I really felt and
recognized for the first time that we’re never alone in the universe.
We’re not alone because we’re all unified in our emotions. I had this
moment of acceptance that I was broken, but I put myself together.
