Nelly Furtado
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Nelly Kim Furtado ( fər-TAH-doh; European Portuguese: [fuɾˈtaðu]; born December 2, 1978) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. She has sold over 45 million records, including 35 million in album sales worldwide, making her one of the most successful Canadian artists. Critics have noted Furtado's musical versatility and experimentation with genres. Furtado first gained fame with her trip hop-inspired debut studio album, Whoa, Nelly! (2000), which was a critical and commercial success that spawned two top-10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, "I'm Like a Bird" and "Turn Off the Light". The former won her a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Furtado's introspective folk-heavy 2003 second studio album, Folklore, explored her Portuguese roots. Its singles received moderate success in Europe, but the album's underperformance compared to her debut was regarded as a sophomore slump. Furtado's third studio album, Loose (2006), became her bestselling album, with more than 10 million copies sold worldwide, also making it one of the bestselling albums of the 2000s. Considered a radical image reinvention, the album spawned four number-one singles worldwide: "Promiscuous" (featuring Timbaland), "Maneater", "Say It Right", and "All Good Things (Come to an End)". Her 2007 feature on Timbaland's "Give It to Me" in the same era also topped the charts in the US and overseas. Furtado's critically acclaimed duet with James Morrison, "Broken Strings", also topped the charts in Europe in 2008. She released her first Spanish-language album, Mi Plan, in 2009, which won her a Latin Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Album. In 2012, Furtado released her nostalgia-inspired fifth album The Spirit Indestructible. Furtado split with her management and went independent thereafter, releasing her indie-pop sixth studio album, The Ride, in 2017 under her own label Nelstar Entertainment[pt]. Her seventh studio album, 7, was released in September 2024. She has won many awards throughout her career, including one Grammy Award from seven nominations, one Latin Grammy Award, ten Juno Awards, one BRIT Award, one Billboard Music Award, one MTV Europe Music Award, one World Music Award, and three Much Music Video Awards. Furtado has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame, and was awarded Commander of the Order of Prince Henry on February 28, 2014, by Aníbal Cavaco Silva, the then-President of Portugal.