Nelly Furtado spent her five-year hiatus being "spontaneous".
The 38-year-old singer stayed out of the spotlight since after wrapping up commitments for her fifth studio album ‘The Spirit Indestructible’ in 2012, and has said she spent that time doing things she’d always wanted to do, like learning to sew so she could make a dress for her 13-year-old daughter Nevis, whom she has with her ex-boyfriend and DJ Jasper Gahunia, and taking up pottery.
Speaking about her hiatus, the ‘I’m Like a Bird’ hitmaker said: "I’m quite spontaneous. I remembered that I wanted to write a play, I’d really love to be able to sew my daughter a dress, because my mother and aunt would sew me clothes, the ceramics place was right by my house, so I went to the pottery museum, and I really wanted to learn how to use a pottery wheel."
And Nelly – who released her sixth studio effort ‘The Ride’ at the end of March – has said her decision to take a break from her music career came after she felt the need to make a "conscious effort" to slow her life down.
She added: "I really wanted to get off of the fast-paced ride that my life had become through taking on a lot of duties simultaneously, as a performer, a recording artist, a mother, a wife, all these things. It was super-overwhelming trying to keep it all together. I just wanted to make a conscious effort to slow my life down, and over the course of this I also parted ways with some people in my life that had been there a long time."
The ‘Maneater’ singer – who divorced her husband Demacio Castellon last year after eight years of marriage – has said her new album is about "demanding truth", and claims she feels "really good" about her efforts.
She told The I newspaper: "I don’t wanna be surrounded by bull any more. Right now, this feels really good and really right."