Nelly Furtado Will Release Her First Album In Seven Years After Making ‘400-500 Pieces Of Music In Four Years’

In June 2023, Nelly Furtado made a musical comeback by joining Dom Dolla for “Eat Your Man,” which she performed with the Australian DJ at Coachella 2024. Last September, she teamed with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake for “Keep Going Up,” and more recently, she dropped “Love Bites” with SG Lewis and Tove Lo.

On Thursday morning, July 11, Furtado stopped by Today With Hoda & Jenna to officially announce 7, her seventh studio album, will be released on September 20. It will be her first full-length since 2017’s The Ride.

“I’ve worked so hard on it,” Furtado said. “It actually took me four years to make this album. I had 500 songs that I whittled down [to] only 14. Don’t worry. It’s not 500. It’s only like 35 minutes, but yeah, a lot of passion went in it.”

Furtado shared the presumed album cover artwork — a black-and-white photo of “7” painted on her bare back — on Instagram along with a lengthy backstory in the caption, which you can see below.

“How do you explain a song that took 2 years to make, in three different cities, with an army of people, and that’s just the ONE SONG named CORAZÓN

This is going to sound strange and stupid but this isn’t a job for me. It’s super personal. Music is my whole language and life and love and blessing, so sometimes it’s hard for me to wrap that up in a bow.

I first felt the energy of what Corazón would become on a trip to Colombia with a couple of friends and then I kept on recording and four years later I have an album, and it’s really always about the journey, honestly. That’s the sad part because you can’t relive the journey — the magic and lessons happen DURING the journey.

I made 400-500 pieces of music in 4 years. My ADHD doesn’t always allow for me to organize creations in a methodical way so it’s hard to explain how we have chosen 14 songs that magically rose to the top of the heap. Phew – they come together just by nature of being in the same collection, 7, kind of like random seashells that may be similar but not at all alike. So this album can’t be listened to like audio wallpaper, or maybe it can depending on how you like to enjoy music but I don’t even care if you skip songs, it’s up to you how to enjoy it. I really mean that. My only intention was to provide some portals to trip out and release and escape. I badly need music every single day. I badly need songs to listen to every single day. My brain doesn’t even work without music.

Anyways, I’ll TRY to explain the process in some photos and videos and storytelling but I know that I experienced it all and cried the tears and made the friendships and felt the joy and fear and pain and I learned a lot and that’s all that matters.

What is cool, though, every time I would doubt myself I would see the number 7 everywhere.

Love you

Also, I did not freaking do this ALONE by any measure.
Thank you to EVERYONE WHO I MET AND MADE MUSIC WITH AND MADE STUFF WITH ON THIS ENTIRE JOURNEY UP UNTIL NOW YOU ARE ALL SO PRECIOUS TO ME FOREVER AND EVER AMEN.

My album 7 coming 9/20

Bye, making more songs…”