Our line up for 2016

Abél Makkonen Tesfaye (born 16 February 1990), known professionally as The Weeknd (pronounced "the weekend"), is a Canadian singer, songwriter and record producer. In late 2010, Tesfaye anonymously uploaded several songs to YouTube under the name "The Weeknd". He released three nine-track mixtapes throughout 2011: House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence, which were critically acclaimed. The following year, he released a compilation album Trilogy, thirty tracks consisting of remastered versions of the mixtape material and three additional songs. It was released under Republic Records and his own label XO.

Early life

Abél Makkonen Tesfaye was born on 16 February 1990, in Scarborough, Ontario, a district of Toronto. He is the only child of Makkonen and Samra Tesfaye, who were Ethiopian migrants to Canada in the 1980s. He was raised in Scarborough, a diversely multicultural neighborhood within the city. During The Weeknd's youth, his mother would work several jobs to supplement the family, often as a nurse and caterer, while also attending night school. His father later abandoned the family, prompting The Weeknd's maternal grandmother to care for him while he was young. This allowed for him to become fluent in Amharic, with the Semitic language acting as his first language. She would also take him to services at an Ethiopian Orthodox church.

The Weeknd started smoking marijuana at age 11, and later moved on to harder drugs. He has credited devising his stage name following dropping out of high school in 2007, adopting the name "The Weeknd" after he and a friend "left [school] one weekend and never came home". The spelling was modified to avoid trademark issues with the Canadian band The Weekend.

Recognition

The Weeknd has received praise from many musical artists. Veteran artist Babyface who spoke positively about The Weeknd stated, "I do love The Weeknd, and I love how, whoever he’s working with, they’re using pieces of R&B with other things that feel really great. [...] It’s promising in the sense that I think there are other unknowns that will come forward and get back to being musicians. I think more than anything, what I miss is the musicians being part of the process." Drake, Nick Jonas and Tove Lo have cited him as a musical influence.

Personal life

The Weeknd began dating Bella Hadid at the beginning of 2015; the couple were first seen together in April at Coachella. Hadid has starred in his music video "In the Night" in December 2015. They also made their red carpet appearance as a couple at the 2016 Grammys in February.

His hairstyle—which is partly inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat—is by far his most recognizable trait. "There's not much to maintaining it," he says — just a hard shampoo every once in a while. He began growing it out around 2011: "I want to be remembered as iconic and different," he says. "So I was like, 'Fuck it — I'm gonna let my hair just be what it wants.' I'll probably cut it if it starts interfering with my sight. I can kind of see it right now. But if I cut it, I'd look like everyone else. And that's just so boring to me."

On social media outlets such as Twitter, he suffixed his name with "xo". According to Hoby, it is meant as an emoticon for "a kiss and a hug", while VH1's Zara Golden said that it is instead a reference to his recreational use of ecstasy and oxycodone.