Nelly Furtado steps back from performing: a look at her iconic career

If you were alive during the early 2000s, you know the chokehold Nelly Furtado had on us.

“I’m Like A Bird”, “Say It Right,” and “Promiscuous Girl” were pop culture lifelines.

You couldn’t walk into a mall, turn on Channel O or Trace or sit through a school dance without hearing her voice floating through the speakers. She was the soundtrack to every teenage crush, heartbreak and “main character” moment.

Now, at 46, the Grammy-winning icon has announced that she’s stepping away from performing.

In an Instagram post, she wrote, “25 years ago today, my first album 'Whoa, Nelly!' was released. In the first slide, I am 20 years old, about to play my first show as a professional artist at Lilith Fair. I went down to a store called ‘Original’ on Queen West in Toronto and shopped for that pink dress and some sparkly platform shoes to perform in.”

She went on to share how her music has reached a whole new generation: “25 years later, my music has reached a whole new generation of fans and I couldn’t be happier about that... I never could have guessed there would be so many new ways to discover ‘old’ music in 2025!”

It’s true, Furtado's songs are having a second life. TikTok remixes, streaming revivals, Gen Z edits, it’s like she never left. But for millennials, her sound was the vibe. She was the voice of that carefree era before filters, when music videos had grainy edges.

It’s that era that defined a generation of music lovers. Furtado brought something completely different to pop, a mix of R&B, Latin rhythms, folk hints, and edgy dance beats.

She gave millennials permission to be confident, weird, and playful, all while sneaking some deep reflection into tracks you secretly cried to at 2am.

So yes, when fans noticed her body transformation recently, some people had opinions because, well, the internet always does. But bodies change.

Time moves. And Furtado looks happy. That’s the glow-up that actually matters.

In her post, she also shared her next chapter: “I have decided to step away from performance for the foreseeable future and pursue some other creative and personal endeavours that I feel would better suit this next phase of my life.”

It’s bittersweet, sure, because we were yet to see her perform in Mzansi, but there’s something powerful about watching a woman define success on her own terms. She reminded us that music careers can evolve, that joy can look different, and that walking away doesn’t mean the magic ends.

Furtado closed with gratitude that felt like a hug to her fans: “Endless gratitude to anyone who has ever listened and vibrated with my music ... I’ll identify as a songwriter forever.”

The "All Good Things (Come to an End)" singer also left fans with a nugget of inspiration for both listeners and young artists: “I also wish, to the new generation of artists, many years of fruitful and passionate performance.”

After 25 years of bops, ballads and pure pop brilliance, Furtado is taking her final bow, and we’re just over here playing "Say It Right "one more time, for old times’ sake.