Nelly Furtado is back in the spotlight with two new babies.
One's a real one -- a six-week-old daughter named Nevis. The other is an album, Folklore, set for a Nov. 25 release. It's the followup to her multi-platinum, Grammy-winning smash debut, Whoa, Nelly!
Both babies are demanding a great deal from the 24-year-old singer these days.
"It's all very overwhelming in a way, but invigorating as well," Furtado said in an interview yesterday. "I feel really lucky to have both things in my life right now. It was kind of nice to have the distraction of making a record during my pregnancy, so I wouldn't get too overwhelmed by the physical aspects of being pregnant.
"And, plus, I have to remember that this is my job, and I can't just shirk my responsibilities. I have to be responsible, and it's good to show her that, too."
KEPT PREGNANCY A SECRET
Furtado managed to keep her pregnancy a secret until not long before Nevis' birth in September. She still hesitates to name her baby's father -- identified by People magazine as her DJ, Lil Jaz, aka Jasper Gahunia.
"I kept it private," she said. "I wanted to keep something to myself. It's so special when it's just you and your partner and the baby, it's your own little thing. And Nevis didn't choose to be famous, so I thought I could at least give her nine months of privacy!
"Now it's great, because we're a family and we travel together and do music together. We're part of the same musical team, so it's cool, 'cause Nevis can come everywhere with us."
Furtado added that when she and the band get around to touring -- perhaps not until next spring or even summer -- they'll take Nevis along for the ride.
The baby was named after the Caribbean island, which in turn, Furtado said, "was a Latin derivation of a word for snow when it was named by Christopher Columbus. So it all kind of works."
Indeed, snow, islands and Latin America are all part of what make Furtado perhaps the quintessential Canadian singer.
DUG DEEP FOR FOLKLORE
Born in B.C. to parents who emigrated from the Portuguese Azores islands, she grew up on folk, hip-hop and pop radio and has incorporated all these influences and more into the wide-ranging Folklore.
"They're old songs in a way, 'cause they talk about things that have affected me my whole life and even before that -- my past and my ancestors and all those things," she said. "I just kind of dug and drew.
"I had all these world influences going on in the first record, but they were kind of portrayed in a different light. Whoa, Nelly! had more street influences -- electronic inflections and a lot of hip-hop and urban stuff. This record's not really like that. We're using the folkloric instruments, everything from the banjo to the tabla to the mandolin and the turntables."
Furtado said that despite Whoa, Nelly!'s success, she didn't feel much pressure to follow it up with another massive seller.
"Actually, I felt the pressure to be original, because I think people look to me to come out with the fresh something or other," she said. "That's what I was worried about -- 'Oh, man, people are waiting for me to put out something exciting and different.' That got me for a while.
"But then I realized that all I can do is be honest and write about what I'm feeling at the time. 'Cause I'm a really bad faker. I can't go in there and duplicate what I did the first time. I tried, believe me. But it didn't sound natural to me, so I just did what I felt like doing."
