The Weeknd could hold onto mysterious menace as an identity, but crafting a pop hit required a different discipline, a feeling that was more universal.Īcne Studios jeans, price upon request, Barneys New York Calvin Klein Collection crewneck, $195, calvinklein.com, Chrome Hearts bracelet, $1,980, and rings, $7,990 (on middle finger) and $11,000 (on ring finger), chromehearts.com He realized that he was now playing on a different field. His first proper album release, however, 2013’s Kiss Land, was a commercial disappointment. Following a brief tour and a bidding war, Tesfaye signed with Republic Records, home to In 2011, he released a trilogy of online albums- House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence-27 songs in all. “I didn’t even want to tour back then-I just wanted to make music and put as many songs out as possible,” he says. His co-workers at the American Apparel where he folded and restocked T-shirts had no idea whom they were listening to when a Weeknd song came on at the store. Still, the singer didn’t want to reveal himself. “He always showed love and kind of showed the world what I could do.” “Drake will always be like a big brother to me,” says Tesfaye. They started to get some notice-and then Toronto’s own Drake linked to them from his website, and that notice got serious. In 2010, he recorded three songs and posted them on the internet. Soon after, he moved out of the house he shared with his mother and his grandmother and into a one-bedroom apartment with four friends. He dropped out of high school in Scarborough, Ontario-an ethnically mixed neighborhood on the outskirts of Toronto-at 17. The son of Ethiopian immigrants who had fled the country’s famine in the 1980s, he spoke Amharic as a child.
In the beginning, the Weeknd wanted to be invisible. Emporio Armani jacket, $2,695, Emporio Armani boutiques Calvin Klein Collection crewneck, $195, calvinklein.com RIVERS TO CROSS | “In the beginning, he liked vibes a lot more than he liked songs, which is typical for indie artists,” says producer Doc McKinney, who has worked with Tesfaye since his mixtape days. It’s like an R-rated film, it’s like Tarantino-I don’t know why, I just love the violence!” “That stuff just comes naturally,” he says with a shrug. You get criticized for it, but in the end it’s entertainment to me. “Sometimes in the studio, we play Carlito’s Way and Scarface, put the sound on mute and try to make the music feel like that. “It’s just a villain you play, like Scarface,” he adds. “Usually I have a linear story line, but this one feels very schizophrenic-that’s probably the best way to describe it. “The album is like a giant collage,” he says.
Tesfaye drew from a range of inspirations for these songs, and he wanted to surround himself with this crazy quilt of influences. The walls of the Conway’s Studio B are covered with posters-the Clash, N.W.A, the classicīathing suit shot, Breaking Bad, Sly Stone, A Clockwork Orange. With the new haircut, he looks younger-in a blue plaid shirt over black T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, he seems much more like a regular 26-year-old from the Toronto suburbs than the Dark Knight of R&B. In conversation, Tesfaye is shy and polite, slightly awkward and fidgety while conducting one of his rare interviews. Mirrors the mood of the lyrics with a murky, narcotized feel. His sound, which has transformed modern R&B and influenced other chart-topping artists such as
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Since his earliest work as an anonymous voice behind a series of underground mixtapes, the Weeknd has nurtured a seedy, brooding image-part hedonistic, part nihilistic, his songs are a parade of casual sex and drugs, more a response to boredom than a search for pleasure. On North American radio, it became the most-added new song of all time. In the weekend that follows, the song will stream more than 17 million times around the world, setting a new record. It’s the day after the release of the slow-burning single, produced by dance-music demigods Daft Punk.
He has taken over the small compound for several weeks to complete the 18 tracks on Starboy (the album arrives in late November at the moment, he says it’s “85 to 90 percent” finished). Tesfaye is seated at one of the consoles in Hollywood’s Conway Recording Studios. Now, he's in the spotlight with a new, risk-taking album. The Weeknd, used to want to be invisible.