`I am impressed when music matters, genres are broken, when spirits are lifted, when people are true to themselves.` These are the words of a young  woman in her early twenties, whose  album Folklore with the foot tapping song " Powerless (say what you want) is topping the music charts on channel V and  MTV right now.  Here is a singer who has music within her soul. Nellie Furtado is of Portuguese descent , but sings in English and Portuguese . She says that the major influences in her life have been  Woodstock, Bob Marley, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Jazz and also the Beatles, Madonna, Lionel Ritchie,Abba  and Paula Abdul. 

Nellie`s crystal clear voice and wonderful tone and timbre are refreshing to the ears, as are her lyrics, which are not obscene of full of innuendoes as most of todays music seems to be.

Nellie Furtado`s debut album "Whoa Nelly!" released on Dream Works Records, Sepember 26 2000 , boasts a hybrid sound that is uniquely her own. She composed all the lyrics . She carries a little notebook with her at all times and many of the lyrics in the album have been drawn from that album. Sometimes she even improvises words on the spot.

Ever since she was a little girl, Nellie has been one with music . In  her Biography she writes,  I grew up in Victoria, British Columbia and  I was performing in both Portuguese and English by the age of four, and playing ukele and trombone through ages nine to eighteen`.  With a musical heritage to be proud of - her grandfather played several musical instruments in S, Miguel, Azores, and a grand uncle who has become somewhat of a legend in his hometown- it is no wonder that  Nellie Furtados music is full of Portuguese elements and influences. She calls them her "musical hardive".

At the age of eighteen, she leapt on stage to sing at a Toronto talent show for mostly black, female performers. It was there that she met her manager and the rest went on to become history. She burst on the scene in 2000 with her frisky song, " Im like a bird". She grew up with plenty of pop music of the nineties , and was also influenced by pop icons from the likes of the Beatles and Bob Marley to Madonna and Mariah Carey. Her eclectic taste is quite evident in her love of hip hop and Portuguese music, and even Brazilian  Jamaican, and Indian and Pakistani music . Just as the music of her ancestors taught her passion and meaning , the urban music of her generation taught her how to be a bold singer, how to write songs from the heart and how to develop a signature vocal style.

This panoply of influences is what makes Nellie Furtados music so different and refreshing today.  Says the effervescent Nellie, " I have always been in awe of nature and all things innovative. I know what independence is , I know what soul is and I know what God is . I want to be Jack Kerouac, Mona Lisa, Gandhi, Mother Teresa all at the same time. I want to inspire people but not in a cheap way. I believe I was born to create music that emotionally connects. I was  born to document the world I see and the experiences I have had in it."

Lyrics of Say what you want -

Paint my face in your magazines
Make it look whiter than it seems
Paint me over with your dreams
Shove away my ethnicity
Burn every notion that I may have a flame inside to fight
And say just what is on my mind
Without offending your might
Cuz this life is too short to live it just for you
But when you feel so powerless what are you gonna do

So say what you want
Say what you want

I saw her face outside today
Weatherworn, looking all the rage
They took her passion and her gaze and made a poster
Now i`s moccasins we sport
We take the culture and contort
Perhaps only to distort what we are hiding
Cuz this life is too short to live it just for you
But when you feel so powerless what are you gonna do

But say what you want
Say what you want

Say, say-ay-ay-ay-ay
Hey you, the one, the one outside, are ya gonna get in, get in
Hey you, the one that dont fit in, how ya, how ya gonna get in
Hey you, the one outside, are you ever gonna get in with your
Broken teeth, broken jaw, broken mojo
Yeah, this life is too short to live it just for you
But when you feel so powerless, what are you gonna do
Cuz this life is too short to live it just for you
But when you feel so powerless, what are you gonna do
Cuz this life is too short to live it just for you
But when you feel so powerless, what are you gonna do

Say what you want