Nelly Furtado was already type of an digital music star.
The Canadian pop legend’s early aughts mega-hits had been remixed into numerous DJ units. However when a mashup of Furtado’s 2006 basic “Say It Proper” and U.Okay. duo Bicep‘s 2017 dance world staple “Glue” made its method into the scene circa 2020, getting rinsed extensively at golf equipment and festivals and garnering upwards of seven million streams, the unofficial edit put Furtado on the map for a brand new technology of digital followers.
Furtado had by no means heard it. That modified when the singer noticed her identify close to that of Dom Dolla’s on the lineup for Past The Valley 2023, an annual pageant in Dolla’s hometown of Melbourne, Australia. Intrigued by the moniker and having needed to work with a DJ on new music concepts, Furtado’s group acquired involved with Dolla’s.
“I awoke at some point to a message from a supervisor, saying, ‘Had been you a fan of Nelly Furtado once you had been younger?’” recounts Dolla. “I used to be like, ‘In fact. Who wasn’t? Me and my sister had been obsessed.’”
Excited, Dolla gathered beats right into a Dropbox, additionally including a little bit one thing particular.
“When producers ship a Dropbox folder, normally it’s simply music,” says Furtado, “however Dom went out of his strategy to file a video of himself. He went, ‘Good day legend, Dom Dolla right here!’ He type of had me at that.”
The pair started passing music — together with the “Say It Proper” edit — backwards and forwards over the web, discovering inventive chemistry. They met IRL this previous January at Past the Valley, the place Furtado carried out her first official present in 5 years and appeared throughout Dolla’s set to carry out the “Say It Proper” mashup reside for the primary time ever. It was a second that prolonged into a creative friendship that delivered the pair’s first official launch, “Eat Your Man,” a membership observe produced by Dolla and sung by Furtado that dropped this previous Friday (June 2). It marks Furtado’s first launch since her 2017 LP The Trip, and places her again into the highlight by way of the strobes of clubland.
The thought for the music first got here to life when the pair and their respective groups had been in a studio outdoors of Philadelphia engaged on music concepts for Furtado. “We had been within the automotive on the way in which to the studio at some point,” says Dolla, “and she or he turns round to me and goes, ‘I’d actually prefer to characteristic on a Dom Dolla membership file.’”
Dolla was barely dumbstruck by the ask — however collected himself, and through that very same drive, performed Furtado instrumentals he’d been tinkering on. “I felt like her sound, particularly her type of upbeat, chest voice rap tone from ‘Promiscuous’ and ‘Maneater’ would work very well on a home file on the membership,” he says.
He was proper, with “Eat Your Man” evoking these classics each tonally and lyrically as Furtado spits, “I’ll eat your man, devour him complete … fly like a hen, I’m taking it dwelling, transferring my physique like a nympho,” over the propulsive, darkly thumping manufacturing.
The observe was made throughout a number of prolonged studio periods in Philly, the place roll name included Jim Beanz, the vocal producer who labored with Furtado on tracks like “Maneater,” “Say It Proper” and “Promiscuous.” (Beanz additionally did backing vocals on these tracks, which had been famously produced by Timbaland.)
‘I mentioned, ‘I really like the way in which that you simply carry out the rap half on ‘Promiscuous Woman’ and the vocal elements on ‘Maneater,’” says Dolla, “and Jim goes, ‘Oh, I keep in mind the settings for precisely how I did that.” The crew spent the higher a part of a day recording and layering Furtado’s voice to get it to sound as near this previous stuff as potential, in the end piling on six layers of vocals for “Eat Your Man.”
“I feel I used to be 16 after I was first set foot in a vocal sales space,” says Furtado. “I keep in mind having fun with the sound of my very own voice in there, and I really forgot that feeling till I labored with Dom. I used to be like, ‘Holy s–t. It’s so easy. You simply should benefit from the sound of your individual f—ing voice and soften into it.’”
For Dolla, the expertise additionally had novelty, with the group collaboration offering starkly completely different inventive course of from the lone wolf nature of dance music manufacturing. (Dolla sometimes produces tracks on his headphones whereas sitting on the sofa of no matter given Airbnb he’s staying at on tour.) Dolla has develop into more and more seen within the dance world chief over the previous few years, taking part in excessive profile gigs together with a headlining present and Pink Rocks and, together with artists like John Summit and Chris Lake, propelling a hard-hitting but additionally completely enjoyable and palatable pressure of home/tech home that’s develop into the mainstream scene’s prevailing sound within the final half decade. (Dolla has had 4 tracks hit Sizzling Dance/Digital Songs since 2019, together with his largest music, the MK collab “Rhyme Mud,” debuting at No. 9 on the chart this previous March and at the moment sitting at No. 24. This summer time he’s performing dates together with Lollapalooza, Tomorrlwand and membership House in Miami.)
However not like the EDM it supplanted, the sort of home hasn’t skilled the kind of crossover success that hits of the EDM period appeared to attain so simply. That period’s A-list crossover collabs — Calvin Harris and Rihanna’s “We Discovered Love,” Jack Ü and Justin Bieber’s “The place Are U Now” — helped give dance music a Sizzling 100 and high 40 presence. Whereas these sorts of hits now occur sometimes, “Eat Your Man” demonstrates each a prevailing sound of contemporary dance music and a second the place massive time pop stars are as soon as once more getting into the membership.
Extremely, none of this might need occurred if not for Drake.
“We had some actually cool conversations about music and life and artwork, and he type of simply blew up my head and was like, ‘You understand, you actually need to make new music, and these are all of the the explanation why,’” Furtado recollects of assembly the rapper and fellow Toronto native. “He was like, ‘It’s worthwhile to boss up relating to your profession.’ I acquired actually impressed and I began hitting it loads tougher. It was like added gas to the flame, you understand?”
Drake even helped Furtado boss up when he invited her to carry out at OVO pageant in July of 2022. “I used to be actually on the zoo with my three and 4 12 months previous [kids], and didn’t even know if I used to be going to [play] till like, 7:00 p.m.,” Furtado says. “Then I did it, and it was like, ‘Oh s–t, I forgot what I do for a residing. That is what I do.”
(“This subsequent individual’s music modified my life a lot. I really like her with all my coronary heart, so when she comes out right here you higher present her some f–king love too,” Drake mentioned whereas presenting Furtado in the course of the present — because the opening beats of “Promiscuous” performed and the gang went wild and proceeded to scream alongside to each phrase.)
This Furtado fervor can also be one thing Dolla has skilled, with “Eat Your Man” having generated a serious response from the dance music neighborhood. “It was actually enjoyable seeing the feedback of individuals going, ‘DJs have been remixing her for the final 15 years and Dom’s managed to get her within the studio.’ I used to be like, ‘I don’t know the way the hell that’s occurred both.’”
The pair — who’re each on the lineup for San Francisco’s Portola pageant this fall — agree that there’s some type of cyclical kismet concerned, with Dolla testifying that listening to Furtado’s music when he was a child seemingly rubbed off on him, subconsciously influenced his music and has now “come full circle the place she type of hears herself in it.”
“I used to be like, ‘That’s actually trippy,’” says Furtado. “It’s very meta. That’s the wave we’re on.”
