Albums

		Life Story
		Biography
		Music and Career

Whoa, Nelly! (2000–2002): Furtado continued to collaborate with Eaton and West, who co-produced her debut album, Whoa, Nelly!, which was released in October 2000. The album saw major success all over the globe supported by its three singles, "I'm Like a Bird", "Turn off the Light", and "...On the Radio (Remember the Days)". It received four Grammy nominations in 2002; her debut single won for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Furthermore, Furtado was critically acclaimed for her innovative mixture of various genres and sounds. 

Slant magazine called the album "a delightful and refreshing antidote to the army of 'pop princesses' and rap-metal bands that had taken over popular music at the turn of the millennium". The sound of the album was strongly influenced by musicians who had traversed cultures and "the challenge of making heartfelt, emotional music that's upbeat and hopeful". Following the release of the album, Furtado headlined the Burn in the Spotlight tour and also appeared on Moby's Area:One tour.

Folklore (2003–2005): Before the release of her sophomore album, Furtado gave birth to her first child, daughter Nevis (named for the Caribbean island, Nevis, on which she was conceived), on September 20, 2003 in Toronto; she had a home birth with midwives. She has said about motherhood, "It's actually pretty incredible. It's a lot more instinctual than I thought".

The father is her then-boyfriend, DJ/producer Jasper Gahunia aka Lil' Jaz. Furtado and Gahunia, who broke up in 2005, were together for four years and friends for several years before that. She has stated, "We're fully active co-parents and really close friends, so things are irie".

Nevis is culturally a quarter Filipino, a quarter East Indian, and half Portuguese. Furtado has chosen to raise her in Toronto due to the city's cultural diversity, open-mindedness, and grassroots political activism. 

Furtado's second album, Folklore, was released in November 2003. The title was influenced by her parents immigration to Canada, "when I look at my old photo albums, I see pictures of their brand-new house, their shiny new car, their first experiences going to very North American-type places like Kmart. When you have that in your blood, you never really part with it—it becomes your own personal folklore." The album also displayed a diverse sound but with a more rock-oriented, acoustic approach. 

As she focused more on the songwriting rather "than on frenetically switching genres five times in one song", BBC felt that it had "twice the originality" of her debut. Furtado attributed the mellowness of the album to the fact that she was pregnant during most of its recording. The final track on the album, "Childhood Dreams", is dedicated to her daughter.

The album includes the single "Força" (means "strength" or "carry on" in Portuguese), which was written as the official anthem of the 2004 European Football Championship. Furtado performed the song at the championship's final in Lisbon, Portugal in July 2004. Other singles included the ballad "Try" and "Powerless (Say What You Want)", in which she embraces her Portuguese heritage; the song deals with "the idea that you can still feel like a minority inside, even if you don't look like one on the outside". 

The album was not as successful as her debut, partly due to troubles at DreamWorks Records and the less poppy sound. It lacked promotion as DreamWorks was sold to Universal Music Group at the time of Folkore' s release. In 2005, DreamWorks Records was shut down, and many of its artists including Furtado were absorbed into Geffen Records. 

Loose (2006–present): Furtado's third album, Loose, was released in June 2006. It was named after the spontaneous, creative decisions she faced while creating the album. Three lead singles were released in different parts of the world: the Spanish reggaeton-influenced "No Hay Igual", the hip hop "Promiscuous" (featuring Timbaland), and the pop "Maneater". For the first time, Furtado worked with a variety of record producers and followed a more collaborative and commercial approach in creating the album. The album, mostly produced by Timbaland, showed her experimenting with a more R&B–hip hop sound and the "surreal, theatrical elements of '80s music". 

She has categorized the album's sound as punk-hop, which she describes as "this modern, poppy, spooky music" and stated that "there's a mysterious, after-midnight vibe to [it] that's extremely visceral". She attributed the youthful sound of the album to the presence of her two-year old daughter.

Furtado also wanted the album to sound more like her demo tapes which she prefers over her finished albums. She recalls, "The cool thing is we did the mixes as we went. The whole album is a board mix theoretically. We didn't bring in the fancy mixer at the end".  

During the album's creation, she listened to several electro and hard rock musicians including System of a Down and Death from Above 1979 who influenced the rock sounds present on the album and the "coughing, laughing, distorted bass lines" which were kept in the songs deliberately.

Loose became the most successful album of Furtado's career, reaching number-one in several countries including the United States and Canada. Its singles, "Promiscuous" and "Maneater", reached number-one in the U.S. and Canada and the United Kingdom, respectively.

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