Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, well-known as the Weeknd, is a Canadian singer, songwriter and record producer. Born in Toronto on February 16, 1990, and raised in Scarborough, he is best known for his explicit songs about sex and drugs, many of which were autobiographical, and for his soaring falsetto and its singular tremolo.
Tesfaye’s mother and grandmother immigrated in the 1980s to Canada from Ethiopia, and his first language was Amharic. He recalls he used to get penalised for singing when he was younger because he always wanted to sing. He used to sing in class and at the dining table and would get in trouble for it. When he was in grade 11, he quit school and left home. Tesfaye eventually landed a job at American Apparel and began his recording career in 2009 by anonymously uploading his song “Do It” to YouTube.
He began writing songs about drug use, casual sex, and alienation. He crossed paths with musician and producer Jeremy Rose, and they started working together. Their collaboration yielded three atmospheric songs — “The Morning,” “Loft Music,” and “What You Need”—with lyrics that were partly sung and partly rapped. The songs, credited to The Weeknd, were uploaded as audio files to YouTube and their popularity grew rapidly after they were posted to the blog of Canadian rapper Drake.
With Drake as an admirer and supporter, Tesfaye had greater access to recording opportunities. He met music executives Sal Slaiby and Amir Esmailian, with whom he founded XO Records. He chose his stage name in tribute to his close friend and future creative director, La Mar C. Taylor, who dropped out of high school at 17 years old, took his mattress, and “left one weekend and never came home”. However, his estranged former producer Jeremy Rose claims the name was his idea. The letter “E” was excluded to avoid trademark problems with the Canadian band the Weekend.
Under XO, Tesfaye released his debut mixtapes. His nine-song mixtape, House of Balloons, which he released as a free download, gained critical notice and was short-listed for Canada’s Polaris Music Prize. Tesfaye made his first public appearance as The Weeknd in a Toronto nightclub in July that year. He released two more free mixtapes in 2011, Thursday and Echoes of Silence. In addition, he contributed to the 2011 Drake release Take Care.
He quickly earned a following and critical recognition from several mainstream publications due to his dark style of Contemporary R&B and the mystery surrounding his identity. In 2012, he signed with Republic Records and re-released the mixtapes in the compilation album, Trilogy. His debut studio album, Kiss Land, was released in 2013. His sophomore album, Beauty Behind the Madness (2015), with the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles “Can’t Feel My Face” and “The Hills”, won Best Urban Contemporary Album and was nominated for Album of the Year at the 2016 Grammy Awards. It was among the best-selling albums of 2015.
In 2016, The Weeknd won Canada’s Juno Award for artist of the year for the second consecutive year, as well as four other Junos, including album of the year. He also won Grammy Awards for best R&B performance for “Earned It,” and Beauty Behind the Madness took the award for the best urban contemporary album. In addition, “Earned It,” which was included on the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), was nominated for an Academy Award in 2016.
The Weeknd’s success continued with Starboy (2016), which featured collaborations with Kendrick Lamar and Daft Punk. It was a commercial hit and earned a Grammy for the best urban contemporary album.
In 2019 The Weeknd made his feature-film debut, appearing as himself in the crime dramedy Uncut Gems, which starred Adam Sandler.