The Weeknd

The Weeknd built a global career out of music that started as anonymous, late-night mood pieces uploaded to YouTube. Born Abel Makkonen Tesfaye on February 16, 1990, in Toronto, he grew up in the suburb of Scarborough, raised by his mother and grandmother after his parents, immigrants from Ethiopia, separated. His first language was Amharic. From those beginnings he became one of the most-streamed artists on the planet, a four-time Grammy winner with a string of Hot 100 number ones and a sound that blended dark, atmospheric R&B with sleek pop until the line between the two almost disappeared.

From mixtapes to Trilogy

In late 2010 Tesfaye uploaded a handful of songs to YouTube under the name The Weeknd, dropping the second “e” to avoid a clash with an existing band. The tracks, moody and explicit, caught the ear of fellow Toronto artist Drake, who championed them. In 2011 he released three free mixtapes, House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence, that built a cult following and earned critical praise. He gathered them into the 2012 compilation Trilogy, his first major commercial release, which introduced his sound to a wider audience.

The breakthrough years

After the more insular Kiss Land (2013), The Weeknd reached for the mainstream and connected on a huge scale. Beauty Behind the Madness (2015) debuted at number one and produced two chart-topping singles, “Can’t Feel My Face” and “The Hills,” and won the Grammy for Best Urban Contemporary Album, while “Earned It,” from the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack, picked up a Best R&B Performance nod. The next year’s Starboy, anchored by a title track produced with Daft Punk, led the Billboard 200 and won him a second Grammy in the same category.

“Blinding Lights” and a record run

His 2020 album After Hours leaned into bright, 1980s-flavored synth-pop and gave him “Blinding Lights,” a single that went on to set Billboard chart-longevity records and became one of the defining pop songs of its era. He followed with the concept album Dawn FM in 2022 and, in 2025, the album and film Hurry Up Tomorrow, a project drawn partly from a real 2022 concert in which he lost his voice on stage. By then he had earned seven Hot 100 number ones and, in 2023, was named by Guinness World Records as the most popular artist in the world, becoming the first act to pass 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

An uneasy relationship with awards

For all his commercial dominance, The Weeknd has kept a pointed distance from the awards system. After After Hours received no Grammy nominations in 2021 despite its enormous success, he publicly criticized the Recording Academy and said he would no longer submit his music for consideration. The stance only added to his reputation as an artist who built his audience on his own terms, through streaming and word of mouth rather than industry approval.

The sound and its roots

The Weeknd’s music grew out of an unusual mix. As a child he listened to Ethiopian music at home alongside Michael Jackson, Prince and punk rock, and those threads run through his work: the falsetto and trembling vibrato owe a debt to classic soul, while the cold, electronic production and themes of addiction, casual sex and isolation gave R&B a darker, more cinematic edge. He helped reshape what male vulnerability sounded like in mainstream music, putting loneliness and excess at the center of songs that still functioned as huge pop hits. The red-suited, bruised character he played across the After Hours era turned that aesthetic into a full visual world.

Film, stage and ventures

Tesfaye has pushed beyond music more than once. He made his feature acting debut in the 2019 Adam Sandler thriller Uncut Gems, headlined the Super Bowl LV halftime show in 2021, and co-created and starred in the HBO series The Idol in 2023. His 2025 project Hurry Up Tomorrow extended that ambition, pairing an album with a feature film he co-wrote and starred in. Around the same time he began reverting to his birth name, Abel Tesfaye, in public, signaling that he was ready to close the chapter that had made The Weeknd one of the biggest names in music.

Records and reach

The numbers around The Weeknd are staggering. He has gathered dozens of platinum singles and albums, headlined the Coachella festival, and in March 2023 was certified by Guinness World Records as the most popular artist in the world, having become the first act to reach 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Much of that reach came without the traditional machinery of radio promotion and awards campaigns; it was built on streaming, strong visuals and a sound that translated across borders. A generation of younger R&B and pop singers now works in the lane he opened.

Most loved songs

A good entry point to his catalogue. Each title opens through the in-site player.

Few artists have moved from underground mixtapes to stadium-sized pop without losing the mood that made them distinctive. If one of his hooks is circling in your head, type it into the search box above to find the track.