The Weeknd

Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, known by his stage name The Weeknd, born February 16, 1990, in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, to Ethiopian immigrant parents, is one of the most successful and stylistically influential R&B artists of the 21st century, a creator whose blurring of dark, cinematic atmospherics with mainstream pop accessibility has earned billions of streams, record-breaking tours, and a devoted global fanbase. He grew up in the Scarborough suburb of Toronto and dropped out of Weston Collegiate Institute at seventeen, spending a period of homelessness in his late teens that he has described as formative in shaping both his artistry and his persona. He began uploading anonymous tracks to YouTube in 2010 under the deliberately misspelled name The Weeknd, building an enormous viral following before even revealing his identity. His debut mixtape trilogy Trilogy (2011) established a signature aesthetic of nocturnal sensuality, drug-soaked alienation, and gorgeous production that was entirely its own. Beauty Behind the Madness (2015) brought mainstream dominance with the number-one singles Can't Feel My Face and The Hills. Starboy (2016), After Hours (2020) — the album cycle that produced Blinding Lights, which became the longest-running top-ten Billboard Hot 100 single in history — and Dawn FM (2022) demonstrated a restless creative intelligence and willingness to reinvent his sound in each album cycle. His halftime performance at Super Bowl LV in 2021, performed against a surrealist maze of backup dancers and reflecting corridors, was named one of the greatest Super Bowl performances in the show's history. He has over 100 million monthly Spotify listeners, making him among the most-streamed artists of all time.