Pop stars clamber into bed with hip hop at their peril. Going bling put Gwen Stefani on the cover of Vanity Fair – the price, arguably, was her long term credibility (today Gwen appears more interested in plugging her clothes line than cutting a blaze in the studio – and her records sound like it).
Pimp-my-tune dalliances with the Wu-Tang diaspora earned Mariah Carey and Sharleen Spiteri a second glance – can anyone seriously argue, however, their careers have benefitted as a result ?
Few artists would appear less primed for a hip-hop makeover than Nelly Furtado, whose previous dispatches have foundered in a morass of asexual vapidity. The Portuguese-Canadian songstress has chops, yes, but, the sitar-soaked car crash that was 2003’s Folklore LP spoke of a magnificent pair of tonsils in search of a purpose.
Against expectations, she returns with Loose, a cocksure foray into rap and r’n b. Steeped in Furtado’s salty sexuality – a quality she seems to have willed into existence – and imbued with a sleazy glamour by producer Timbaland’s glittering, languorous beats, it is nothing less than a swivel-hipped, midriff-baring triumph.
Furtado wisely embraces a less-is-more manifesto: not for her the revolving door stance on collaborators that made Stefani’s Love Angel Music Baby feel like an A-list house party with some slovenly rhythms heaped on top. Planned cameos by Pharrell Williams and Chris Martin were quietly binned – instead Furtado stays in the driving seat from start to finish, abetted on the majestically dutty ‘Promiscuous’ by Timbaland’s thug-love rhyming. Letting her inner ghetto princess off the leash, Furtado has crafted the first great mainstream pop record the year.