Nelly Furtado feat. Alex Cuba - "Mi Plan"

Nelly Furtado is back! Her first Spanish-language album is a mixture of design and circumstance.

There she was in the studio with her friend, guitarist James Bryan, attempting to help write the lyrics for a song titled "My Plan." But nothing worked. She tried writing the lyrics in Portuguese, but that didn't work either. And then, Alex Cuba -- a Cuban-Canadian singer-songwriter whose album Furtado had recently heard and liked -- stopped by the studio to say hello. Why not try the song in Spanish, he suggested. Then he had a go at the lyrics.

"And I really liked it," Furtado recalls. "So we started really organically writing songs -- me, him and James."

"My Plan" evolved into "Mi Plan," Furtado's first full-length Spanish-language album, due September 15 as a joint venture between Furtado's own label, Nellstar, and Universal Music Latin America. "Mi Plan" will be released simultaneously in all of Universal's 77 territories around the world and may be the most ambitious Spanish-language release by a mainstream star.

While it's common for Latin crossover artists like Enrique Iglesias and Shakira to release albums in Spanish, these always have included at least one English version of a single for mainstream radio.

For Portuguese-Canadian Furtado, who has recorded Spanish collaborations, recording solely in that language is a gutsy move. "To me, music is a language in itself," Furtado says.

Given Furtado's global success, however, a Spanish-language album may be a good bet. "Mi Plan" comes in the wake of Furtado's 2006 album, "Loose," which sold more than 2 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen Soundscan, and more than 10 million copies worldwide, according to Universal. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry ranked it at No. 13 on its list of top-selling albums for 2006 and 2007. Its hit single, "Promiscuous," was the fourth-best-selling online track in the world in 2006.

Beyond Latin America, her star appeal is so big that the first single from the new album, "Manos Al Aire," is already climbing the European radio charts.

Furtado hasn't discarded the possibility of recording an English-language version of one of her new Spanish-language songs. "If any of the songs is a big crossover hit, then maybe I'll attempt it," she says.

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