Nelly Furtado is slipping some culture into her Isle of MTV stint in Malta – she wants to visit the Tarxien Temples and perform some għana on stage if she finds someone to join her.
It’s gorgeous here and it just feels so ancient
The Canadian singer-songwriter, with Portuguese roots, seems to have done her homework on the island.
Speaking ahead of today’s concert on the Granaries in Floriana, she says, referring to għana, Malta’s traditional folk music: “I originally wanted to sing some of your free-style songs of the older generations.”
Ms Furtado compares għana to the Portuguese-style Canções ao Desafio, saying that was how she learnt to improvise and that her songs are written in a spontaneous manner.
Told she would now have to live up to her original idea, Ms Furtado said she would welcome an għana artiste to share the MTV stage and sing with her tonight.
She is looking forward to this evening also because she loves “playing outside” and has heard the “concert is spectacular and the crowd is great”.
Until then, however, Ms Furtado has not wasted any time.
Yesterday morning she was on a photo shoot on an Atlantis luxury yacht in Comino, where the sea of the Blue Lagoon and the cliffs of Crystal Bay left an impression on the star.
“It’s gorgeous here and it just feels so ancient,” she says, planning to visit some churches too during her stay.
Wrapped in an elegant, body-hugging red dress, black hair pulled tightly off her face, long eyelashes framing her piercing eyes and a tanned complexion highlighted by crimson lipstick, Ms Furtado works the cameras with ease at the Grand Hotel Excelsior.
She is also wearing her trademark, massive, flying-saucer-like earrings – but not half as huge as the ones she has on in the video of her latest single, Big Hoops (Bigger the Better), which cannot but arouse pity for the state of her ear lobes.
Earrings have always been a part of her look and she jokes that she grew up in a Portuguese household, where “the babies are wearing them from two weeks old – and a gold chain!”
But beyond the fashion statement, which could turn out to be the in thing this summer, the song has another message: “It’s about attitude and state of mind. The bigger, the better... It’s about confidence...”
Big Hoops is the first single from Furtado’s latest and fourth English-language studio album The Spirit Indestructible, which is due to be released in September. Between her last album and this, Furtado launched her own record label and a Spanish album, underlining the importance of her Portuguese heritage.
Talking about her style of music, Ms Furtado does not belong to one genre either. “My voice is the only unifying factor and I think I suffer from musical ADD – Attention Deficit Disorder – in that I get bored really easily and I have to keep it exciting for myself.”
She never tires of exploring new sounds and counters any monotony by, for example, singing in another language – her new album includes Swahili.
And why not some għana too..?