Nelly Furtado makes smart entry into Latin music market

Nelly Furtado's musical career has been filled with drastic changes. She started as a funky hip-hop / fusion phenomenon, soaring to success with her 2000 debut Whoa, Nelly and its Grammy-winning hit I am Like a Bird, then veered into a Brazilian-tinged world-beat detour. She returned to the mainstream in 2006 with the bestselling, sexy pop-hip-hop of Loose.

Now Furtado is back with a new sound and a new identity -- Latin songstress. Her latest album, Mi plan , a pop-rock record filled with famous Latino guest stars, comes out this week. It's an idea that's been brewing for some time. The Canadian-born daughter of Portuguese immigrants, Furtado performed Portuguese songs as a child. She recorded a hit duet in Spanish, Fotografia, with the Colombian rock star Juanes in 2002, and he returned the favor by guesting on one of two Spanish songs on Loose . (Incidentally, Furtado's husband is a Cuban-American from Kendall, a sound engineer she met while recording Loose at North Miami's Hit Factory

Songwriter Jacob Jeffries attracts South Florida's savviest musical tastemakers

Jacob Jeffries is onstage at the Transit Lounge, pounding the keyboards, channeling Billy Joel, and Elton John, and the Beatles, and Ben Folds, and the 14 years of songwriting he's packed into his own 21 years of life. This Thursday night got off to a bumpy start -- the Brickell-area club had booked another party, which ran almost an hour into the start of the release party for Jeffries' latest CD, . . . waiting for the piano movers . . .

But at 10:30 p.m. the stage is finally his, and Jeffries is in full swing, lost in the music, leading a crowd that ranges from former high school buddies to fellow musicians to local music industry heavyweights, in a happy, clapping, arm-waving singalong. ``You've got some nerve,'' Jeffries wails exuberantly, ``to ask if I believe in love.''

There are plenty of people in South Florida who believe in Jeffries, one of the most talented and most watched musical artists on the local scene. A songwriting prodigy who's been composing since he was 7, Jeffries has attracted

Reviews | Blitz the Ambassador, Ledisi, Mindy Smith and more

HIP-HOP

BLITZ THE AMBASSADOR

Stereotype

'Idol' winner Allen remains humble on new album

Kris Allen knows he's not garnering as much attention as Adam Lambert - and that's OK with him.

Since foiling Lambert at the "American Idol" finale last May, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter from Conway, Ark., has not appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and declared he's gay. His music can't be heard during the credits of the apocalyptic action flick "2012." And you won't find him posing in a racy Details photo shoot with a naked woman.

"I don't mind," an always modest Allen says while perched in "Idol" overlord Simon Fuller's quiet office 10 stories above the Sunset Strip. "I think that's how I went through the competition as well. I did my thing, and it worked out. And that's how I'm going to do my music career. I'm just going to do my thing, what I like to do, and hopefully it works out."

Rihanna talks about breaking down and her new CD

Rihanna says recording songs on her new album was such an emotional experience that she sometimes had to leave the studio to prevent herself from breaking down.

"I walked out the studio a few times just trying not to be in tears," she said Monday about recording her fourth studio album, "Rated R," to be released on Nov. 23.

"It was about me, and so much so that songs got really personal to the point where it took three months for me to start recording it because it was too deep for me to even listen to," she said.