Nelly Furtado

Canadian singer Nelly Furtado first broke through as a clean and cheery young pop star, before drifting out of public favour for a short while. Her career was revitalised when she recruited Timbaland to produce third album Loose. His nose for a cutting-edge track and Furtado's new sexier image combined to give the singer a succession of massive hit singles through 2006.

The singer-songwriter Nelly Furtado was born in Canada in 1978. Her first recording was for hip-hop group Plains of Fascination on their album Join the Ranks (1996), but she left the band shortly after as she felt the style of music wasn't the path that she wanted to follow at that time. A performance at a talent show in Toronto led to her being spotted by a label scout and she released her first single "Party's Just Begun (Again)", which appeared on the soundtrack album Brokedown Palace: Music from the Original Motion Picture.

Nelly Furtado released her debut album Whoa Nelly! in 2000. The album was both a commercial and critical success, receiving four Grammy nominations and one Grammy Award, for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, for the single "I'm Like a Bird". Following the success of the album she was invited to appear at the Area Festival organized by Moby.

Her follow-up album, Folklore released in 2003, was less popular. The folk influences weren't appreciated by the mainstream audience that had loved her debut record. One track from the album, "Força", was adopted as the anthem for the 2004 European Football Championship, which was held in Portugal ("força" is Portuguese for "carry on").

The 2006 album Loose put her right back in the spotlight. Producer Timbaland brought in some new sounds from R&B, hip-hop and reggaeton, and combined with her new image the album was a commercial and critical smash. The popularity of the album was helped by the strength of the singles: "Promiscuous" won the Billboard award for Pop Single of the Year, while "Maneater", "Say It Right" and "All Good Things (Come to an End)" topped singles charts around the world.

In 2007 she performed at the Juno awards in Canada, where she won awards in all 5 of the categories in which she was nominated.

Continuing her successful collaboration with Timbaland, she and Justin Timberlake went to No.1 in the US with the Timbaland single "Give It to Me".