Nelly Furtado:  I'm Like a Bird

Quiz by Sharon Michiko Yoneda

artist: Nelly Furtado

songwriter: Nelly Furtado

date released: 2000, by Nelly Furtado

Furtado, was born on December 2, 1978, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Her Portuguese parents, Maria Manuela, and Antonio Jose Furtado, were both immigrants from the Azores and emigrated to Canada in the late 1960s.

 Nelly was named after Soviet gymnast Nellie Kim. At age four, she began performing and singing in her native Portuguese language. Furtado's first public performance was when she sang a duet with her mother at a church on Portugal Day. She began playing musical instruments at the age of nine, learning the trombone, the ukulele, and in later years, the guitar and keyboards. At 12, she began writing songs and as a teenager, she spent eight summers working as a chambermaid with her mother, along with her brother and sister, who was a housekeeper in Victoria.

 Nellie is proud of her working-class background. She has stated that coming from a working-class background has shaped her identity in a positive way.

 In 2002, "I'm Like a Bird" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year and won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, making Furtado the first female act to win the award for her debut single since Mariah Carey did so ten years earlier and the last to be awarded to a Canadian in the category. Normal text - Montserrat - normal style - 11