Nelly Furtado looks back on her journey from underground teen artist to international superstar

Q53:59Nelly Furtado, Alexandra Streliski

Nelly Furtado still remembers the exact moment she knew her career was taking off. It was the early 2000s, and she had been sleeping in her Toronto apartment when she was awoken by the sound of I'm Like a Bird — the first single off her debut album, Whoa, Nelly! — playing on her alarm clock radio.

That album turned Furtado into an international superstar, but having come up making trip-hop in Toronto's underground music scene, she was anxious about going mainstream and supposedly selling out. The record's less successful third single, Shit on the Radio (Remember the Days), explored her insecurities about making pop music.

"[I was] a little scared of, I guess, crossing over in a way," Furtado says in an interview with Q's Tom Power. "I just knew that my identity was special and I should hang on to that.… Commerce and art merge in a different way [now] than 20 years ago."

Shit on the Radio (Remember the Days) was about making music her own way, regardless of what the haters might say. Furtado actually wanted that track to be her first single, but legendary record executive Mo Ostin insisted on I'm Like a Bird instead.

"I didn't get it," she tells Power. "This cool little girl from Queen Street making trip-hop, I was like, 'No, I want Shit on the Radio to be my first single! It's cooler.'"

These days, Furtado can fully appreciate how unique I'm Like a Bird is, but her relationship with the song was complicated at first. Its folk-pop sound was unlike anything else on her debut, which was already unconventional for its time. Drawing on her personal tastes, Whoa, Nelly! combined rock guitar, scatting, Brazilian samba and elements from several other genres.

"They chose I'm Like a Bird [to be the first single], and I was so happy they did because you don't have the perspective," she says reflectively. "To be a professional artist in the business, you have to know who you are, but you also have to listen to people who are skilled enough to take advice from."

Getting her start

Furtado hails from Victoria, but when she was 17 — just graduated from high school with no college fund or solid plan for what to do next — she moved to Toronto, thinking she could couch-surf with her sister and aunt, who both lived in the city.

After she arrived, Furtado and her friend, Tallis Newkirk, started a trip-hop band called Nelstar (which to this day is also the name of her record label, Nelstar Entertainment). It was while performing one of their songs at the all-female artist showcase Honey Jam that she was discovered by producer Gerald Eaton, the Philosopher Kings frontman also known by his stage name, Jarvis Church.

"I performed a Nelstar song called Like — I think it's floating around on the internet somewhere — and Gerald was in the crowd," she says.

"After my performance, he approached me and he was with my current manager, Chris Smith, who managed the Philosopher Kings at the time, and he asked to make more music with me.… We did a quick demo, then I went back to Victoria for a year for college. I was literally a teenager — I was 17 — so I wasn't quite ready, I will say. I wanted to kind of grow my songwriting a little more."

The following summer, Furtado returned to Toronto and worked with Eaton and his producing partner and Philosopher Kings bandmate, Brian West, to create a new demo, which she says comprised almost half the songs on Whoa, Nelly!.

The producers, Gerald and Brian, really believed in me and we believed in [the] sound we were creating.- Nelly Furtado

From taking her own bio photos at a booth in Toronto's Galleria Mall ("RIP," she says. "It's almost not going to be there soon") to recording her demo in West's bedroom near Queen Street East and Broadview Avenue, Furtado maintained her underground DIY sensibility, always opting to follow her heart instead of the money. 

"I was just coming from a different place," she tells Power. "So you either had to buy into the whole package as a record company or not. Because I kind of had a chip on my shoulder — I'm not sure why or how. I had a really good manager, who trusted in my vision, and of course the producers, Gerald and Brian, really believed in me and we believed in [the] sound we were creating."

WATCH | Nelly Furtado's interview with Tom Power:

The 2024 Juno Awards

This Sunday in Halifax, Furtado will host the 53rd annual Juno Awards, which she's hosted once before, in Saskatoon in 2007.

"It's an honour and it's exciting, overwhelming. But also it's going to be fun," she says.  "Musicians, we like to be creative and goofy and fun — and be in the spotlight, quite frankly. We're hams, so I'm ready."

You can watch this year's Juno Awards on Sunday, March 24, at 8 p.m. ET. Tune in on CBC-TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music and CBC Listen, and stream globally on cbcmusic.ca/junos.

The full interview with Nelly Furtado is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power, and on YouTube. She also talks about turning away from music in 2012, how her song Maneater caused a studio fire and how Drake inspired her recent comeback. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Nelly Furtado produced by Vanessa Greco.