Nelly Furtado talks Missy and Timbaland

Nelly Furtado on working with Missy for the "Get UR Freak On" Remix:

"At the end of the day, [Missy] really gave me a good opportunity when she sort of stuck her neck out and said, "Hey I think you really need to be on this Hip-Hop record called ‘Get Your Freak On.’ You wanna do a remix?" And she had no idea that I even knew how to - not rap – but do any sort of rap/singing style or anything that I do.

She didn't know that, she didn't know what I was gonna do. She just let me run free, run wild in the studio and do my thing. So I love when people take risks like that. I mean I try to do that too and reach out and collaborate with people no one's every heard of and different things like that. Timbaland invited me to the studio because he sampled a piece of my song "babygirl.". Yeah, and he sampled "Ching Ching,” and my label called me up and said Timbaland he's used your sample and he wants you to come approve it. So he played me the song and said Missy really wants you on this remix, and he played me "Get Your Freak On.” And I heard it for the first time; I heard it on these huge speakers. And the next week I met Missy and she just let me do my thing.

I recorded a verse, and she came in and listened to it and she said, "Cool I like it. Do another one,” and she left the room again I did the verse. She came back in and said, "Cool I like it. Do another one.” I just kept going, and she let me do my thing. She just kept everything I did, she kept all my choruses and all that stuff I did - she just really liked it. She finished it off and made it the way she liked. And it was a big hit.

A lot of people when they heard that on the radio had never heard of Nelly Furtado the pop singer who sings "I'm Like A Bird" just because that remix was played on a lot of stations that don't really play pop. There were a few of people who thought I was a young boy from Jamaica. They didn't know who Nelly Furtado was and they assumed I was a boy on the record.

Because if you listen I kinda sound like a boy if you erase everything you know about me and listen to it with fresh ears. And yeah I got that feedback from a lot of people. I went to go visit a friend's relative in New York in Brooklyn, and she was saying that a lot of her friends had heard the record and thought I was a Jamaican boy. That gave me confidence; alot of people are feeling my flow, and my energy and delivery and don't even know what I look like.****