Nelly Furtado Says Drake Had to Convince Her to Sing “I’m Like a Bird” at 2022 OVO Show
Nelly Furtado says it was Drake’s idea to have her perform “I’m Like a Bird” at his OVO All-Canadian North Stars concert in 2022.
The Canadian singer-songwriter, 45, recently appeared on the Zach Sang Show to talk about her surprise appearance at the rapper’s historic show in Toronto that saw her perform excerpts of her Timbaland-assisted 2006 hit “Promiscuous” and her Y2K debut single “I’m Like a Bird.”
“I was like, ‘Drake, why don’t I do, like, one of your songs? I got bars, you know?’” Furtado quipped. “And then he’s like, ‘Mmm, no, we don’t have enough time to rehearse that. That’s not going to go off right.’”
Instead, Drake suggested “I’m Like a Bird.” Although the song was a major hit all those years ago, Furtado implied she was kind of confused by his request and suggested “Promiscuous” instead.
“He’s like, ‘Yeah, but for sure you got to do ‘I’m Like a Bird.’ I was really hesitant to … I don’t know, it’s just out of context,” she confessed.
Drake’s instincts proved to be right and the performance turned out to be a major success. One fan’s video of the surprise appearance has garnered nearly one million views on YouTube.
The performance was also a major moment for Furtado, which she says led her to discover more confidence within herself after a nearly five-year hiatus from the stage.
“I just got out there and then it is true, we did ‘I’m Like a Bird’ and it was a real moment, and he was literally like ‘I told you so!’” Furtado said.
She continued, “That was a good moment for me because I had done a lot of work on myself internally, I would say, up until the years—those five years not being on stage. When I got out there, what hit me was, ‘Oh my God, I’m a totally different woman now,’ you know? I can receive this, I can be here, I can be present in a different way. I have so much more to offer at this job like, ‘Wow, I guess I was pretty good at this at one point,’ you know what I mean?”
“What if I bring all this new knowledge about myself, all this new confidence, all this new self-love into what I’m doing now? Then I think I just leaned into that like, ‘Wow, I’m a whole new person in the studio because I got new boundaries. I got new self love,’” she added.
Furtado is gearing up to release 7, her aptly-titled seventh studio album, on Sept. 20. The LP will be her first album since 2017’s The Ride.
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