Nelly Furtado interview: The moment I’m Like a Bird singer realised she’d unknowingly won over a new generation of fans

Female pop stars are often expected to reinvent themselves every few years. Some, like in Taylor Swift‘s fanbase, call it different “eras”.

For Portuguese-American singer Nelly Furtado, she’s opening her wings and announcing a new era in September: in the form of her seventh studio album.

The Maneater hitmaker, 45, released her boppy new single Corazón late last week and spoke to 9honey Celebrity about her re-emergence from her hiatus back onto the pop scene.

Watch the video above.

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“I take it pretty seriously, I don’t make a lot of albums, so I really take my time,” Furtado explained.

“I write all my songs and music is my language, so I made 500 pieces of music.. And so it’s amazing we only have 14. It’s my crème de la crème.”

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Furtado has an unlikely affinity with Australia and her many fans Down Under.

The singer collaborated with Australian rapper Dom Dolla for the song Eat Your Man in 2023 – her first in six years – and learned some fun catchphrases along the way.

“I talked to Dom on WhatsApp so I’m always like, ‘Mate, thank you!’ Or ‘Matey’,” she laughs.

“Matey is our favourite one in Australia.”

Furtado tells 9honey she realised a new generation of fans – Gen Z to be specific – had discovered her music when she scanned the crowd while playing at the Beyond the Valley festival in Queensland in 2022.

“That was a big deal for me,” she explains.

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“Because it was my first time seeing my new fans, sort of like Gen Z, who had discovered me through social media and TikTok and other ways.”

She adds: “It became very real for me [when] I walked onto that stage at Beyond the Valley and I thought, wow… What is this? I can’t believe this, I can’t believe I’m doing this 20 years later and I still have an audience.”

Furtado, who released her last album The Ride in 2017, says the music industry is “tricky to navigate” and admits her musical renaissance seven years on is a little daunting.

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A huge comfort, however, is the fact she’s had the same loyal fans for decades.

“Sometimes the things you make are not as popular or well-received as maybe the last thing you did, so to have songs I made over 20 years ago be popular is this total blessing,” she adds.

“I just couldn’t be happier, so I had to kind of challenge myself to do it, to just put together something special again.”

Nelly Furtado’s seventh album, titled 7, is set to be released on September 20, 2024. The album will feature her single, Corazón, featuring the Colombian band Bomba Estéro.

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