Nelly Furtado rediscovered her passion for music with help from her 20-year-old daughter Nevis. Following a hiatus from performing, the Canadian singer has returned with a brand new album and a brand new sound for a new generation.
It’s been three years since Furtado was last in a recording studio. She released The Ride in 2017, then took a break to focus on her family.
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When Furtado returned to work on her latest 7, Nevis provided a built-in Gen Z sounding board. Also, Nevis reminded her mother why people love her music. Confident and inspired, Furtado began working on new material.
The album’s first single is “Love Bites,” featuring Swedish singer Tove Lo and British DJ SG Lewis.
Dirty Dancing
“Love Bites” is a flirty club anthem inspired by live DJ sets.
And I can tell it from your mouth that you
Real good at working with your mouth and you
Not really tryna f–k with my mind and
Good at pretending that you could be mine
Yeah, I can tell it from your mouth that you
You got the devil in your eyes, so I’m
Not gonna waste all of my time on ya
You should know that I can turn on a dime
Furtado stated in a press release: “I felt called back to music from the DJ community.” She said DJs “were remixing my songs at concerts, clubs, and on social media, and I realized how much people like to dance and escape to my music.”
She added, “It’s the healthiest vice you can have, and I love the opportunity to write music that lets people escape more than anything.”
I want your body on mine
Boy, you’re looking too fine
The way your love bites
Got me dreaming ’bout that
Time left your mark on my mind
Give me more of that kind
The way your love bites
Got me dreaming ’bout ya
Like a Bird
Furtado rose to prominence with her debut album Whoa, Nelly! (2000), which featured two Top-10 singles, “I’m Like a Bird” and “Turn Off the Light.” She returned three years later with Folklore, not to be confused with Taylor Swift’s album of the same name. It sold modestly compared to her hit debut but showcased an artist unafraid of hopping genres.
When she returned with her third album Loose, Furtado and producer Timbaland looked to the 1980s for inspiration. The album contains some of Furtado’s biggest hits, “Promiscuous,” “Maneater,” and “Say It Right.”
A mid-2000s hit, Loose has sold more than 10 million copies. The pop album revived her career—though not for the last time.
Gen Z and TikTok
In 2022, Nevis alerted her mother that she’d gone viral on TikTok. Furtado’s ’80s-inspired hit “Say It Right” became a dance trend on TikTok. (“Say It Right” was the fourth single from Loose and had reached No. 1 in 2007.)
So Furtado found she’d become popular with Gen Z as creators danced to a sped-up version of “Say It Right.”
Tove Lo
With inspiration from her daughter and a new generation of fans, Furtado felt ready to return to the studio. She and SG Lewis exchanged ideas online before meeting in 2022 at Australia’s Beyond the Valley music festival.
As “Love Bites” developed, Lewis asked if he could bring a friend in to help with the song’s chorus.
Furtado said, “Only if it’s Tove Lo.” She told NME, “Tove just blew me away with the quality of her voice.” The three completed “Love Bites,” the first single from Furtado’s upcoming seventh studio album, due on September 20.
A Chameleon
It’s no surprise to find Furtado with yet another new audience. She’s always appeared cooly ahead of music’s trends. In 2009, she confounded critics when she followed Loose with a Spanish-language album, Mi Plan. That confusion now seems absurd in a world with artists like Bad Bunny, Karol G, and Rosalía racking up billions of streams.
Born in Victoria, British Columbia, to Portuguese parents, Furtado describes herself as a “chameleon” who doesn’t adhere to the limitations of genre-based music.
She’s written folk music and club bangers. But she always sounds like Nelly Furtado—a Gen Xer who’s inspired Generation Z to film themselves dancing on TikTok.
On Furtado’s first hit “I’m Like a Bird,” she sings, I don’t know where my soul is / I don’t know where my home is. And like a bird, Furtado’s songs migrate across vast expanses—free from what others define her to be. The old methods of organization no longer apply.
If Nelly Furtado is indeed like a bird, then genre is the cage where she can’t be contained.
Help me, I can’t tame me, you can try
Connect me with your eyes
Can’t even hold me too tight
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Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Coachella
