Thanks to BITS member Ninhas for sourcing this:

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For her new album, Canuck popstress Nelly Furtado downplayed her putumayo hippie vibe, hung out with Paris Hilton in Miami and learnt the value of a good booty-shake.

By Victoria de Silverio

When you broke in 2000 with “I’m Like a Bird,” you were a funky boho chick, kind of an anti-Britney. Now you’re releasing your third album, and you’ve turned into a midriff-baring sex bomb. What happened?

I made the new album in Miami and I felt really sexy there. Miami accepts booty! Plus, when I came into the business, I was really intimidated by all those girls who had been on the Mickey Mouse Club when they were kids. I’m just now catching up, accepting my job more. My video choreographer taught me how to move in all these different ways. I’m more at ease with my body than I have ever been.

Is your booty your best asset?

Physically speaking, yes. I like it. It’s good. It’s nice to have something to hold on to. It’s just coming out of the woodwork, though, so it’s still shy. It doesn’t want too much spotlight.

Your first record, Whoa, Nelly!, sold 2 million copies; your second one, 2003’s Folklore, sold one-quarter of that. did you worry that you were washed up at 24?

I was talking to Jimmy Iovine, the boss at my new label, and he thinks that Folklore is like U2’s Pop — not quite there. I wasn’t smiling and jumping up and down anymore; I was wearing a guitar and looked serious. Four or five songs have Portuguese folk music. That’s just crazy. After Folklore, I realised I had maybe taken certain things for granted. Like, isn’t everyone’s first performance on SNL? Isn’t everyone’s first interview with Vanity Fair? Doesn’t everyone open for U2 and win a Grammy? Whoops! I should have appreciated all that stuff, especially the free clothes.

How do you feel now when you hear “I’m Like a Bird”?

I’ve heard it sung at karaoke or by cover bands, and it was awesome — I was like, wow, I’ve got one of those songs. Somebody once called it a “hairbrush song,” one that girls and guys sing in front of the mirror with their hairbrush. I just think I’m lucky I have it — it’s paying the bills!

Your flirty new single with Timbaland is called “Promiscuous.” Would you describe yourself as such?

No, although I did go through a phase when my first album came out, and I was meeting all these cool people. I’d get their phone numbers and call them. But I don’t do that anymore.

Do you usually make the first move?

I do. I’m aggressive. But now, I actually have a boyfriend. A secret boyfriend. Of eight months.

Why is he a secret?

I just don’t really talk about it. It’s nobody famous or anything.

You have a 2-year-old daughter named Nevis. Who’s her babydaddy?

Jasper. DJ Lil’ Jaz. He’s a DJ-turntablist-slash-keyboard-player-slash-producer. We broke up a year ago and were together for four years, friends for like five or six years before that. We’re fully active co-parents and really close friends, so things are irie.

Why didn’t you two ever get married? Are you not the marrying kind?

I’m kind of modern. I don’t really live by society’s standards. Maybe in the next five years I’ll get married, have more kids. One grandmother had eight kids, the other had 10. If I have that many kids, then I would need a hubby.

You’re 27, which is the age of gruesome premature rock deaths: Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison. Why do you think 27 is such a killer?

I think the rock & roll lifestyle affords you a motorway to midlife crisis, which comes 10 to 20 years earlier than it normally would. You’re dealing with the increased neurosis of becoming an adult and you’ve got to deal with your inner demons in front of everyone.

How do you exorcise your demons?

Listening to heavy, heavy rock music like System of a Down and Death From Above 1979. I love the rhythms and the loud vocals and guitars.

Is noise rock your biggest vice?

I also use these homeopathic healing oils called Bach Flower Remedies.

With a syringe, at least?

I just spray them under my tongue.

How are you stereotypically Canadian?

I’m politically correct and very nice. Canadians are known for their niceness.

Are you more hippie or hood at heart?

Hippie. I had a home birth with midwives. I’m into spirituality and reading about different religions, even Wicca. I went through a feminist phase and read a lot of philosophical stuff. Some of the male-bashing brainwashed me for a bit so I stopped. I love men!

What about the hood part?

I know how to fit in. When I was making my record with Timbaland in Miami, people would show up with briefcases of cash and say to Tim, “Give me a beat.”

Who else showed up in Miami?

Paris Hilton. [Producer] Scott Storch brought her around to meet me. She’s sweet. Girl-next-door type of vibe.

Are you looking forward to Paris’s album?

Yeah, for sure. I’ve heard it was good. She’s an underdog and I like underdogs. In secondary school I was friends with all the underdogs. I had my cool friends, too, but I liked to be friends with the people that nobody liked. When I met Paris, I told her, “Good luck, and you’re innocent till proven guilty in the music business.”

This is a full transcript for the article that was published in “Cover” magazine:

On a coffee table in a downtown Toronto hotel suite, Celine Dion and David Foster stare out from the cover of a glossy magazine. The pair, smug and self-satisfied, are the epitome of safe, sanitised pop. As Nelly Furtado breezes into the room to discuss Loose, her daring new album produced largely by hip hop’s Timbaland (aka Tim Mosley), the contrast begs comment: she and Mosley are worlds away from the Las Vegas glitz of Dion and Foster. “No kidding, eh,” laughs Furtado, settling into a sofa for an extended interview. “Tim’s always done break-through music, pushing sonic boundaries. And I like to always surprise people and turn their heads 360 degrees, like an exorcist spinning around.” Presumably, without the projectile vomiting. “My music’s always changning,” she continues. ” I don’t know if I have a short attention span, or if it’s just that I like too many styles of music to focus only on one. I just go where the inspiration takes me.”

This time, inspiration took Furtado to Miami, where she and beats mastermind Timbaland (Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg) recorded most of the tracks. Unline her previous albums, which only hinted at urban sounds, Loose is a full-on mix of contemporary Latin, hip hop and R&B styles. “My last two records were a little cerebral,” admits Furtado, “where this one is much more of the body. It’s all feel-oriented, vibe-oriented.” Hedonistic numbers like “Maneater”, the tribal-thumping first single, and “Promiscious Girl”, a steamy rap duet with Mosley, certainly take the Canadian songstress into edgier - and sexier - territory. Rolling Stone even went so far as to call her rhymes on “Promisuous Girl” a celebration of her “inner slut”, which Furtado, a single mother of a toddler, denies. “I just like double entendres,” she insists. ” The album title actually refers to how we approached the record, which was to make it in a very unhinged, unpolished and unedited way.

Loosness is one of the album’s many charms, from the in-studio banter between Furtado and Mosley to the raw, improvised quality of tracks like “Maneater” and “All Good Things” a duet with Coldplay’s Chris Martin. If anything, Loose is a celebration of Furtad’s inner child, as reflected in the giggling laughter that closes “Fraid” and the youthful spirit that pervades such songs as “Do it”, “Glow” and “Say it Right”. Like Gwen Stefani’s Love.Angel.Music.Baby, Furtado’s Loose is an unabashed dance record bound to thrill club-centric audiences - maybe at the expense of core listeners. The multicultural pop queen, whose previous recordings won a Grammy and a slew of Juno Awards, seems resigned to alienating some fans. “I pissed off people when I made a folk album last time,” she says, “and now I’m going to piss off the acoustic types with this album.”

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This is a full transcript for the article that was published in “Cover” magazine:

A cinematic sunset is bathing the chic glass-walled penthouse suite atop Toronto’s Cosmopolitan Hotel in picture-perfect golden hues, and the pressure’s on the wrestle a supremely glammed-up Nelly Furtado away from an intense hair, makeup and wardrobe session and get her in front of the camera before the magic hour is lost.

There’s consternation in the face of one of Nelly’s powder boys, though, as he catches wind of the grinding stoner-metal track by Queens of the Stone Age emanating from an iPod someone has carted along to the shoot.

“I don’t know if this is really Nelly’s thing,” he says, daring over to the player. “Maybe we should ask her if there’s anything else she wants to hear.”

Turns out, however, Queens is exactly Nelly’s style this evening. As she takes her place before the wide-screen view of the lake offered by the $3,500-a-night suite’s sitting room, she relays a request through her chuckling publicist for System of a Down. Yep, Nelly Furtado likes it one louder.

“That was fun. My little trick so that no one watches me while I’m taking photos is I listen to System of a Down,” she laughs a few days later, de-fabulised and dicing up potatoes to make soup for her 2-year-old daughter, Nevis. “I like listening to System while I’m taking really glamorous photos. I don’t know what it is. I like working to that music. I guess I like juxtapositions. And it’sa good way to clear a room.”

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Transcript written up by BITS member Elle

Part 1

Star Daily: Well that energy is getting Nelly lots of attention for her sexy self-confident third album, “Loose” due out 20th June. (NEED TO CONFIRM THIS - UPDATE SOON ~ Joey)

SD: What does “Loose” mean?
Nelly Furtado: Its just a whole concept, Its just loose..Its just like..

SD: Yeah its just Loose
NF: Hahaha

SD: I know what you mean!
NF: Its almost like reality TV when you watch reality TV and its exciting to see things happen spontaneously, we’ve included those things on the album so there are skits where you hear us talking while we are making the record.

SD: Yeah you’re laughing and..
NF: Yeah yeah!

SD: Heading into recording Nelly wanted to do a lot of collaborating, so she invited some people to play with her like:
NF: Chris Martin from Coldplay, he came into the studio and hung out with us

SD: What’s the story behind that, how did that happen?
NF: We bumped into each other at the MTV awards in Miami, in August, 2005, last year, so I told him I was working with Tim, and he said you know can I come by the studio cause I love Tim and I said well Tim loves Coldplay, so it was a perfect match, a match made in heaven, so he came and jammed for 4 hours and the song is called, “All good things come to an end.” I like real moments like that in music, you know, those are the moments I live for where just everybody is having a good time and were jamming and that’s kind of why I make music for moments like that.
[Clip of Nelly singing]

SD: Talk to me about the evolution of Nelly so from, “Whoa Nelly” to “Loose”, and how like, just how you’re song writing has sort of evolved over time.
NF: Um, you know, with “Whoa Nelly” a lot of those songs I wrote when I was 17, and now I’m 27! Back then music was my whole entire life, you know, so I was there for every single last note, and musician session, and I co-produced the whole album as I did with “Folklore” and Im involved as a producer as well. This new record I’m not as much a producer.

SD: And the person she got to produce the record is none other than Timbaland, which gave Nelly the chance to well, let loose!
NF: This time, I’m like woo! Lets party! Haha! Im way more confident as a woman. Im was more secure with myself too as a musician. Its what you gotta do as an artist you gotta just be like ah, screw it, I have to express myself.

Part 2

SD: Where was I? Oh right! Nelly Furtado! So what IS she all about? With her highly anticipated album “Loose” ready to go, Nelly Furtado is THE name on everyone’s lips these days and I got to sit down with her one on one in Barbados.

SD: What do you, Nelly Furtado, represent, what do you stand for?
NF: Um. I stand for..individuality, for sure, finding your personal path.

SD: With the birth of her daughter, Nelly was able to find her personal path.
NF: Being a mum has changed my life, entirely, its made me more vulnerable. Because when you have a child, you just, its unconditional love, instantly, you instantly love somebody unconditionally and it just, you become more sensitive to the world, you become part of the mother race! It’s made me more serious about my job, its made me treat it more like a job, where like I work and then it ends, and I have my personal time, and then I go back to work and you work harder because you have to provide for somebody you know, and also I like to show her that work ethic, where like, mummy works hard, and its important to work hard in life

SD: Kinda like what your parents showed you.
NF: Exactly!

SD: Nelly’s daughter is giving her more than just stability.
NF: This record, it was cool, because now she is growing up, and she was around 2 years old when I was recording most of this album 1.5, 2, and, to be around a young toddler when they are playing and jumping and laughing is really inspiring and brings out your own youthful energy. Now that im a mum, I uh, don’t have as much time to sit in a room with a guitar for 12 hours straight and write like 20 songs. So I’ve given that up and I just show up at the studio and I’m like hey, and freestyle, and sing and just kind of write when im there, right on the spot.

SD: With all the time between records, Nelly put it to good use.
NF: I’ve been lucky, the last year and a half I’ve been really prolific, I’ve been really inspired, so I wrote a lot.

SD: So what happens to those songs? The ones that don’t get used.
NF: They’ll get used! They will come out on like, a limited edition, album, a b-side album or an acoustic album, maybe on a soundtrack, or even on my next album! You never really know.

SD: With all the pressure to turn out hits, was there any time for fun while making “Loose”?
NF: I always have funs making my albums, you know why? Its cuz I’m honest, like on the microphone I’m honest, and when I’m writing I’m honest.

SD: So Nelly told me that she’s been talking to Justin Timberlake about a possible summer tour. Only Star Daily can give you inside info like that!

Download the full videos of the interview here

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