Abel Makkonen Tesfaye 

(born February 16, 1990), known professionally as the Weeknd, is a

Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born in Toronto and raised in Scarborough,
Tesfaye began his recording career in 2009 by anonymously uploading his song "Do It" to YouTube.
[1]
 Two years later, he met music executives Sal Slaiby and Amir Esmailian, with whom he
founded XO Records.[2] He chose his stage name in tribute to when he, along with a friend, dropped
out of high school at seventeen 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.[3][4] The
letter E was excluded to avoid trademark problems with Canadian band the Weekend.[5][3]
Under XO, Tesfaye released his debut mixtapes: House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of
Silence. He quickly earned a following and critical recognition from several mainstream publications
due to his dark style of Contemporary R&B and the mystique surrounding his identity.[6] 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.[7]
Tesfaye's third album Starboy (2016) was a similar commercial success and included the number-
one single of the same name, and also won Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 2018 Grammy
Awards. His fourth album, After Hours (2020), featured the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
"Heartless", "Save Your Tears", and "Blinding Lights", the latter of which has become the first song
in history to spend over a year in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100,[8][9] and was the most streamed
song on Spotify in 2020.[10]
Among the world's best selling musical artists with over 75 million records sold[11] and on the list of
most-streamed artists on Spotify,[12] Tesfaye has won many accolades, including three Grammy
Awards, five American Music Awards, nineteen Billboard Music Awards, two MTV Video Music
Awards, fifteen Juno Awards, five SOCAN awards and one Brit Award, and has been nominated for
an Academy Award.[13] He 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", and
"The Hills".[14] In February 2015, he was awarded the Allan Slaight Award by Canada's Walk of Fame.
[15]
 In 2017, he was featured on the cover of Forbes for his annual earnings of $92 million.[16] Elton
John listed him as one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2020 in Time.[17] Tesfaye has a notable
voice with a soaring falsetto and its singular tremolo.[18] He has influenced artists in
many contemporary music styles including pop,[19] hip hop, and R&B.[20]