Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, who popularly known as The Weeknd, is a Canadian singer, songwriter and record producer, who began his recording career in 2010, anonymously uploading many songs to YouTube. Weeknd released the mixtapes House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence, a year later, and quickly earned a following and critical recognition from several mainstream publications because of Weeknd’s dark style of R&B as well as the mystique surrounding his identity.
He signed with Republic Records, in 2012, and re-released the mixtapes as part of the compilation album Trilogy (2012). Weeknd’s debut studio album, Kiss Land, was released in 2013 and followed the album with Beauty Behind the Madness (2015), which was one of the best-selling albums of 2015. Containing the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles ‘Can’t Feel My Face’ and ‘The Hills’, Beauty Behind the Madness won the Best Urban Contemporary Album which was nominated for Album of the Year at the 2016 Grammy Awards. Weeknd’s third album Starboy (2016) was a similar commercial success and included the number-one single called starboy, while the song also won Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 2018 Grammy Awards. Weeknd’s fourth album called After Hours (2020), featured the number-one singles ‘Heartless’ and ‘Blinding Lights’.
Abel Tesfaye has won 3 Grammy Awards, 2 American Music Awards, 9 Billboard Music Awards, 9 Juno Awards, and also has been nominated for an Academy Award. Weeknd holds several chart records, being the first artist to simultaneously hold the top three positions on the Billboard Hot R&B Songs chart with ‘Can’t Feel My Face’, ‘Earned It’ as well as ‘The Hills’. Among the most successful Canadian recording artists, he was awarded the Allan Slaight Award by Canada’s Walk of Fame for ‘making a positive impact in the fields of music, literature, film, visual/performing arts, innovation/philanthropy’.
Age
Abel Tesfaye was born on February 16th, 1990 in Toronto in Ontario and was raised in Scarborough.
Family
Abel Tesfaye is the only child of Makkonen and Samra Tesfaye, who were Ethiopian immigrants to Canada in 1980s, and he was raised by his grandmother and mother after his parents went their separate ways. Abel Tesfaye learned Amharic while living with his grandmother, which Weeknd also spoke with his mother. Abel Tesfaye attended Ethiopian Orthodox church services.
Starboy
Starboy is a song recorded by Weeknd for his third studio album called starboy. The album features French electronic duo Daft Punk. The artists co-wrote and co-produced the song together with Doc McKinney and Henry Walter, with Jason Quenneville who provided additional writing. Starboy song was released as the first single from the album on September 21, 2016, through XO and Republic Records. The song is an R&B and electropop song with lyrics that contain themes of extravagance of a celebrity’s life.
Trilogy
Trilogy is a compilation album by The Weeknd and was released on November 13, 2012 via XO and distributed by Republic Records. The album is composed of re-mixed and remastered versions of his 2011 mixtapes House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence, and three previous songs which were not released.
Songs
-Blinding Lights
-In Your Eyes
-Starboy
-The Hills
-Earned It
-I Feel It Coming
-Call Out My Name
-Save Your Tears
-Wicked Games
-D.D.
-Heartless
-Often
-In the Night
-Die For You
-Hardest To Love
-After Hours
-Scared To Live
-Until I Bleed Out
-Pray for Me
-Reminder
-Snowchild
-The Morning
-Secrets
-Wasted Times
-High for This
-Try Me
-King Of The Fall
-Missed You
-Tell Your Friends
-Alone Again
-Too Late
