Nelly Furtado Says TikTok — and 'Gen Z’s Singing All the Words’ to Her Hits — Helped Her Appreciate Her Legacy (Exclusive)

Nelly Furtado has a new appreciation for her older music.

In recent years her early hits found a new fan base on TikTok. In January 2023, the pop star performed live for the first time in five years at a festival in Australia, where “the Gen Z’s singing all the words blew my brain,” Furtado, 45, says in the new issue of PEOPLE.

"I went, 'Whoa, this is real. This is not just a fun app. This is my music reconnecting. This is a big deal,' " the Grammy winner adds.

That post-performance epiphany came as Furtado was working on 7, her seventh album and first in seven years, which she released on Sept. 20. It also came after what she calls the "biggest heartbreak" she's faced — her split from rapper ex Jerry (aka Gerard Damien Long), 33, with whom she shares a daughter, 6, and son, 5. 

“I was single again, so I was going to clubs, going to parties, and I’d hear my music everywhere. For the first time I wasn’t shy to hear it," the hitmaker says. "It was inspiring. I was able to celebrate myself a little bit more. After all these years it started to feel like, ‘This is a real career you’ve created. It’s not just a temporary thing.’ ”

Now, Furtado calls 7  the “album that I had always wanted to make" — and she worked on it with a special collaborator: her eldest child, Nevis Gahunia, 21, whose dad is music composer Jasper Gahunia, 45.

For nearly four years, the mother-daughter duo collaborated, oftentimes at the Orange Lounge recording studio in Toronto, where they created 75 percent of the album. With Furtado, Nevis co-wrote four songs on the 14-track album ("Showstopper," "Corazón," "Fantasy," "Take Me Down"), in addition to helping with the record’s mixing, sequencing and packaging; she also has an A&R credit on 7 and provided background vocals on "Take Me Down" and "Fantasy."

Furtado rose to fame nearly 25 years ago. She introduced herself with her 2000 debut, Whoa, Nelly!, which included her hits “I’m Like a Bird” and “Turn Off the Light.” But Furtado shook things up with a an artistic reset six years later when her third album Loose topped the charts because of smash singles like “Promiscuous,” “Maneater” and “Say It Right.”

After a break from the spotlight to focus on family, she returned last year with the Dom Dolla collab "Eat Your Man," before releasing "Love Bites" with Tove Lo and SG Lewis — which appears on her new record — in May.

Nevis says 7 "is inspired by Loose in so many ways — in the way that it makes you feel, in this new, fresh way where you're being more vulnerable, but you're also pushing yourself."

Furtado's daughter, who has launched her own career in the music industry, adds, "One of the north stars for me being a part of this project was pushing [her] to get back into that Loose energy, because after that album, we kind of departed from those production sounds, and that energy and making club bangers that sound really great when you're going out and hearing it at a party in the modern day ... It was a discovery process for both of us."

For more on Nelly Furtado, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere now.