I might as well start with this: I’m not a fan. I tried, but I don’t find myself liking Nelly Furtado’s albums at all. However, there’s always the one track that I really like. In some cases, more than one!

The Missy Elliot remix of Get your freak on is not one of them. It does make sense on the Tomb Raider album, though, so on that context, it flows great.

I’m like a bird just didn’t do the trick for me when it came out. Too hippie-ish. I much preferred Turn the lights out. Listened to the album and it was a pass from me. When folklore came out, I didn’t pay attention. Forca was catchy, but didn’t find myself actively wanting to relisten.

In late 2004, I was doing work for parastatal company in Mexico. We had to go into unkempt areas where unmarked pipelines were laid and we had to detect them with fancy equipment, get the GPS coordinates, and then take photos and videos of the place. I had been in detecting unit before, but they thought my skills were better aimed at video and photos. Grueling work, usually involving hot and humid weather, venomous animals, barbwire, swamps, and the occasional armed fellow Mexican with an understandable distrust of people with measuring equipment.

Yes, we once got stinkeyed by some narcos. I have no idea how I’m still alive right now.

We went to parts of Chiapas, Veracruz, and Tabasco. Most of our work in November and December of 2004 was in Tabasco, a place that is beautiful but has extreme weather. I took two to three showers daily, because I had allergies to some plants, and we had to check for ticks as most of the jungle became grazing land.

My coworkers would go for drinking and whoring at nights, eating at fancy restaurants sometimes, other times at the cheaper cafés near the hotel. Me? I would just go for room service, which was silly cheap in the hotel we took as basecamp, and the food was actually delicious. Due to my -alleged- neurodivergence, I would choose a certain comfort food during my stays. On that particular night, I was fond of clubhouse sandwiches.

I would edit at night, checking the photos for any stuff that had to be photoshopped out (licence plates, faces) and start working with the video, capturing from the camera into the laptop. As rendering took sometime, I would wait while watching VH1. I somehow got hooked on The Surreal Life, of all things, and VH1 Ill-ustrated.

We were spoiled for choice in pop music back then. Robbie Williams’ Tripping had a fantastic trippy video, and Explode by Nelly Furtado actually tugged some heart strings. The lyrics spoke to me in a way a song hadn’t in ages and the gorgeous video was both endearing and depressing. The shot of young Nelly writing got me back into writing and editing, and sometimes I would do so on a notebook while the Pinnacle Studio software on the computer crashed and made me start again. Guess the company couldn’t be arsed to pay for a license and we had to do with demo versions and less than respectable versions that “fell of a digital truck.”

I never bought Folklore, but I’ve listened to it a few times. Still don’t like a full album from Nelly Furtado, but it’s a goddamned honest album. I think it’s her most personal and it’s a shame she left that facet of hers for a Timbaland-oriented experience on Loose, which is well-produced but not my thing. Say it right is a banger, though, and Bloc Party’s cover is heartbreaking (in a cathartic way).

Sometimes I think back of those warm nights writing while videos rendered. I was in a weird point in my life, recovering from a broken rib, not a single prospect in my love life, doing ok for money, aimlessly listing through life. Overusing adjectives and adverbs like there’s no tomorrow. With that job, it could’ve been a possibility. I feel like I’m back into that era, now 22 years after the fact. Explode still hits like a brick to the heart, and I still don’t like a full album by Nelly Furtado, but the live footage I’ve seen of her, and the Tiny Desk concert video are proof positive that she is a great artist.

-Sam J. Valdés López