"I threw myself into the deep end to see if I could
swim," Nelly Furtado says. "I let go of the voice that says,
'Oh, no, what if I can't do this?' because you never know until you
try."
In preparation for her new album, 'Loose', she tried writing
rhymes and rapping, she tried out collaborations with a who's who of
producers, she tried not to get a sunburn in Miami, she tried her hand
at Spanish hip hop, and she tried to create a music more of the body
than the mind. A prime example of the latter is first single 'Promiscuous',
a duet with 'Loose' producer Timbaland, known far and wide for his groundbreaking
work with, among others, Missy Elliott, Justin Timberlake and Aaliyah.
It stands to reason that gold and multiplatinum certifications
(for 2003's 'Folklore' and 2000's 'Whoa, Nelly!', respectively), a pair
of Top 10 singles ('I'm Like a Bird' and 'Turn Off the Light'), and
a Grammy Award (for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance), to name just
a few accomplishments, would afford a certain level of confidence. But
nothing has inspired Furtado to throw caution to the wind more than
motherhood. "Motherhood makes you fearless," she says.
"The album is very youthful-sounding," Furtado
continues, "and I think that's partly due to the presence of this
two-year-old in my life. I was with her all day every day and then I'd
go to the studio at night, and I think that translated into a playful
energy I feel onstage but that hasn't really been heard on my records."
"This album shows me letting go in so many ways,"
Furtado attests. "For example, with the track 'Promiscuous,' I
co-wrote the lyrics--something I've never done before - with this rapper
from Alabama named Attitude. That was extremely freeing because it allowed
me to experiment with interpreting a character, which I then took into
the video shoot" [directed by Little X, perhaps best known for
his clips for Usher, Nelly, Ludacris and Sean Paul].
Furtado is so animated while talking about this stuff
that it's hard to believe her when she says, "Every time I make
an album, I say to myself, 'This is the last; I'm never going to make
another one.'" She does clarify, however: "Then I get the
bug and I make music that excites me and I start it all up again."
She started Loose up by holding what she jokingly calls
a "hip-hop workshop" with her emcee friend Jellystone: "We'd
write rhymes, dissect them, and try different flows over beats. That's
what planted the seed for this album. I grew up listening to hip-hop
and R&B but when it came to my own music, I kind of put that on
a shelf. With this record, though, I knew I wanted to have that sound."
Starting with her longtime production team of Track &
Field, she also knew she wanted to check out a variety of producers.
"Working with new producers," she hazards, "is like trying
on new clothes - you never know what you look good in until you try
it on. And sometimes they will see something in you that neither you
nor anyone else could see." So she traveled with her daughter from
Toronto to London to work with Nellee Hooper; to Los Angeles to work
with Lester Mendez (who produced, "Te Busque," her moving
duet with Juanes) and Rick Nowels (co-writer and producer of the gorgeous
ballad "In God's Hands"); and to Miami to work with Pharrell
Williams and Scott Storch and finally, Timbaland.
"It was like I stopped at these different ports along
the coast and at the end of the journey, I came to the grand ocean liner
that would take me out to the wide blue sea," she says. The big
boat she's talking about is Timbaland, of course. Asked about their
creative chemistry, which was in ample evidence on the Nelly-enhanced
remix of Missy Elliott's 2001 hit 'Get Ur Freak On', she says: "It's
like love - musically, between us, that's what it's like. Everything
he plays inspires me; I want to sing to everything he writes. I adore
what his stuff sounds like."
What Nelly calls the "vortex" of their collaboration
on 'Loose' got off to a sizzling start. "My first night at the
studio in Miami," Furtado narrates, "we all jammed. [Co-writer]
Nate Hill had this ferocious beat up, and there was this crazy, tribal
voodoo energy in the room. I've never felt anything like it - it was
so intense. The volume was turned up to 11, and all of a sudden I started
to smell smoke. I looked at the speaker and flames were shooting out
of it. We were so scared of the track that we put it away and didn't
touch it for two weeks."
The crazy, tribal, voodoo track in question is 'Maneater',
about which Furtado says, "That one truly has a life of its own;
it makes you move." It's another 'Loose' standout, one that embodies
the eminently danceable hip-hop/new wave hybrid that distinguishes much
of the album's sound.
"We had this Eurythmics thing going on in the studio,"
she explains. "I kept calling Tim 'Dave' and he'd call me 'Annie.'
Eurythmics had this spooky, keyboard-driven pop sound. That song 'Here
Comes the Rain Again' - I'm not 100 percent sure what it's about, but
it always takes me away to another place, and I love it. That's how
I feel about 'Say It Right'; even though I wrote it, I don't really
know what it's about, but it captures the feeling I had when I wrote
it, and it taps into this other sphere."
Also citing Blondie, The Police, Talking Heads, Madonna
and Prince as influential to the creation of 'Loose', Furtado notes:
"We were picking up on some of the more surreal, theatrical elements
of '80s music, the stuff that puts you in sort of a dream state. There's
a mysterious, after-midnight vibe to this album that's extremely visceral.
I want people to escape into the music and indulge their most animalistic
impulses."
While recording 'Loose' at Miami's Hit Factory, Furtado
immersed herself in the escapist fantasy that is everyday existence
for a superstar producer. Asked if she got caught up in the city's nightlife,
she responds: "There was no need to hit the clubs because the party
was in the studio. Timbaland is one of those magnetic, larger-life-personalities.
He lives like a rock star. Producers really are the new rock stars.
They have the huge mansions; they drive a different fancy car to the
studio every day; they've got beautiful women around. People show up
with briefcases full of cash and say, 'Gimme a beat.' It was a really
exciting environment to be part of."
Working with Timbaland also meant having access to other
artists who want to work with Timbaland. Lil' Wayne stopped by to contribute
"the most amazing freestyle ever" to a remix of 'Maneater'.
Attitude was on hand to not only co-write 'Promiscuous' but also lend
a rap to 'Afraid'. And Chris Martin of Coldplay popped in to co-write
the lilting 'Why Do All Good Things Come to an End?'
Of course, Furtado was thrilled to throw open the door
when these collaborative opportunities knocked. She seems to have an
insatiable appetite for new and novel creative pursuits. One of these
took the form of 'No Hay Igual', one of two Spanish-language tracks
on 'Loose'. She relates a particularly productive exchange with Pharrell:
"We were hanging out and he said, 'You should do a reggaeton track,'
and I said, 'What's reggaeton?' He played me some stuff and I was blown
away; as far as I'm concerned, it's the most exciting musical movement
going on today. As it was, I was speaking Spanish to everyone down in
Miami. So I tried to write something like that, just for fun. It's not
really a reggaeton track, though; it's more my own personal interpretation
of that sound."
The extremely percussive 'No Hay Igual' is another example
of the "body music" that defines 'Loose'. My first two albums
are very polished and pristine and shimmery," Furtado points out.
"There's a static quality to the songs, almost like they're paintings.
This one is much more from the gut. The songs are beat-driven, so they
get your heart pumping and your blood moving. 'Maneater,' for instance,
is a song with a pulse. This stuff is going to be amazing live because
there will be so much room to explore and play and have fun."
"It's true that a lot of this record is about physical
attraction, but there's also a naive, almost childlike quality about
it," she ventures. "Some of the lyrics remind me of when I
was 13, sitting in my room [in Victoria, British Columbia] writing R&B
ballads all day. I've somehow returned to that place where I'm innocent
about love."
She remembers when 'Say It Right' was born: "It was
3:00 in the morning and kind of chilly in the studio, so I put my hoodie
on, which is a great metaphor for this album: With this record, I have
my hoodie back on. It's like I'm 14 again, sneaking out my bedroom window
to go down and hang out with the hip-hop kids."
This back-to-the-future phenomenon spilled over into the
making of the record as well. "One of the reasons we have the little
conversations from the studio between the songs - what I've been calling
'reality audio' - is to take the mystery out of the process. I want
the listener to see that we were just jamming and letting loose, like
I did on the improvisational tracks I used to make when I was 19. It's
not rocket science. We mixed each song as we went along and just used
those board mixes on the record. Rather than end up feeling like the
demos were better than the finished tracks, which has always happened
to me in the past, we just decided to not fix what wasn't broken."
Indeed, the raw, lighting-in-a-bottle spontaneity of the
collaborative process is at the heart of 'Loose'. "This record
shows who I am in a jam-type environment, where I really feel the excitement
of the creativity flowing," Furtado reveals. "It's who I am
at my most artistic. I live for that, and I'm very grateful to be able
to share it."
'Loose' is out now.
