R O C K & ROL L
Toronto-born R&B singer The Weeknd is on a familiar
trajectory towards pop superstardom, albeit with a
decidedly social media-era twist.
Abel Tesfaye broke out in 2010 anonymously uploading
music on YouTube under the moniker The Weeknd, before
dropping a now-infamous trilogy of mixtapes, House of
Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence, in 2011 ahead
of his 2013 debut album, Kiss Land. He turned music
fans’ heads with his dark, pop-laced R&B and his hip-hop-
influenced verbiage and delivery, but it wasn’t until 2015’s
The Beauty Behind the Madness that he rose to the next
level. Propelled by hits like ‘The Hills’, ‘Earned It’ (from the
movie Fifty Shades of Grey) and the crossover smash
‘Can’t Feel My Face’, Beauty became The Weeknd’s first No.
1 album and those three songs marked the first time any
artist had the top three songs on Billboard’s R&B chart.
Along the road to fame and success, Tesfaye has hit
some of the usual bumps. His relationship with fellow
Torontonian