The Weeknd is a singer who can be called a “product” of the modern era. The popularity of the performer came thanks to the Internet – the young man simply posted his compositions on the Web. Now The Weeknd is one of the most popular and promising performers in the R&B and Pop styles, and the compositions “High For This”, “Shameless”, “Devil May Cry” and many others have become the most popular hits.
Childhood and youth
The real name of the artist is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye. The singer was born on February 16, 1990, in Toronto, Canada, in a family of immigrants from Ethiopia. His parents moved to Canada back in the 1980s.
Abel’s family lived in poverty, the mother had to work in several places to feed herself and her son. The father did not take part in raising his son and soon left the family altogether. Therefore, the grandmother often sat with little Abel.
Due to the lack of attention from the father and mother, which is so necessary for any child, Abel grew up to be a rather difficult teenager. The young man made dubious friends, he began to smoke marijuana and skip classes. Abel left school at 17, planning to become a popular performer. It is noteworthy that such a daring dream of a simple guy from a family of emigrants eventually became a reality.
In the morning, Abel worked as a salesman in a clothing store, and at the night he arranged concerts with friends who also dreamed of the stage. At one of these concerts, the singer met Jeremy Rose who was also a newcomer to the world of music at the time and longed for the fame of a genius producer. The stars, as they say, converged.
On the same day, Rose invited the young man to perform three songs that were written for another person. Sometime later, the professional musical biography of Abel Tesfaye began with these three compositions, but first, it was necessary to choose the name of the project.
The original working draft was “The Weekend” – this is the correct spelling. However, this name was already taken by another musical group. Then The Weeknd appeared – Abel and Jeremy Rose simply removed one letter from the word. The road to glory has begun.
Music career development
In September 2010, The Weeknd’s first songs appeared on YouTube: “What You Need”, “The Morning” and “Loft Music”. A couple of months later, they were published on the blog of Drake’s OVO label. At first, The Weeknd shied away from attention. He considered himself a boring conversationalist and was afraid of cameras. At the time, Abel worked at American Apparel and played his songs there. None of the workers had any idea that they were listening to their colleagues.
A year later, he signed with Republic and began recording his big solo debut, before officially releasing the mixtapes that were surfing the Internet under the same cover of Trilogy. After his first big show in the States at the Coachella Festival, The Weeknd decided to get serious about himself. Now you can’t tell at all that this guy was shy and avoided cameras.
One of the key turns in his career happened in 2014. It was a label-imposed involvement in Ariana Grande’s song “Love Me, Harder”. Abel easily fitted his vision into a formatted pop track. He ended up in Los Angeles to record some songs for the album from scratch. This is how “In the Night” and “Canʼt Feel My Face” appeared – the main hit in the Canadian’s career.
The Weeknd’s success story
Abel topped the charts with “Canʼt Feel My Face” and “The Hills”. The radio, which had previously refused to receive the Canadian, finally agreed. There was no escape from The Weeknd. The soundtrack to “50 Shades of Gray”. Two hits were released a couple of weeks apart. A growing romance with model Bella Hadid. In six months, Tesfaye has transformed from a Tumblr blogging hero into a figure that The Sun and The New York Times write about at the same time.
The album Starboy was released on November 25, 2016. The album debuted at # 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, topped iTunes in 80 countries, and set a Spotify record for the most streams per day. In 2017, tops the Forbes ranking of the 30 highest-paid sports and shows business stars under 30. According to the publication, its annual income is 92 million dollars.
