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Jack Dorsett Level 3 Music Diploma
The Weeknd
Who Is The Weeknd?
The Weeknd, real name: Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, is a multi-award-winning artist from Toronto, Canada. His rise to fame was a long time in the making, but definitely worth the wait he endured. Mostly known for his exciting club songs, big hair and Michael Jackson-esque voice, he also has a dark, unique musical side that the majority of people don't know about. He first broke through into the music scene with this dark sound in 2011 when a couple of his songs were posted on fellow Torontonian Drake's blog and gained a huge interest. So how does a drugged up downtowner transform himself into one of the most successful artists of his generation?
Early Life & Musical Influence
Tesfaye was born on February the 16th, 1990. He is the only child of 2 Ethiopian immigrants who lived in Scarborough, Toronto. While he was young his father left his mother, meaning he was to be raised by his mother and grandmother. Until the age of 5 Abel spent a lot of time with his grandmother, as his mother worked long hours trying to provide for them. As a result of this, he is fluent in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. In an interview with Pitchfork; he says "Ethiopian poetry is a different language. I can speak and understand (Amharic), but I can’t understand their poetry. When my mother would translate - it’s the most beautiful thing ever.". The first, and so far only, time he has used this language in his music was in the outro to one of his break-through songs - 'The Hills'.
The words sung are: "Ewedihalehu/ Yene konjo, ewedihalehu/ Yene fikir, fikir, fikir, fikir/ Yene fikir, fikir, fikir, fikir" this translates to: "I love you very much/ My beautiful, I love you very much/ My love, love, love, love/ My love, love, love, love". He also listened to a lot of Ethiopian music in his younger years - in the same Pitchfork interview he states; "My mother, my grandmother, my uncles would play Ethiopian artists like Aster Aweke and Mulatu Astatke all the time in the house. They would drink coffee, eat popcorn, and listen to the music. It’s such beautiful music, but I didn’t realize how beautiful it was until I left that head space. That’s why I feel like my singing is not conventional" said the musician. "The feeling in my music and in my voice is very Ethiopian and very African and much more powerful than anything, technically.
As he grew up he started to expand his music taste. Artists like Michael Jackson, Prince and R Kelly were among his favourites. Some of the genres he grew to enjoy and be influenced by included soul, quiet storm, hip hop, funk, indie rock, and post-punk.
A Star Is Born
Of course, music had been heavily involved in Abel's life from a young age but he only began to take it seriously when his educational years were coming to an end. In fact; the moment that kick-started his career was when he, along with his friend Lamar Taylor, dropped out of school and left home. This was also the origin of his stage-name - before the release of his second studio album, 'Kiss Land', he did an AMA (Ask me anything) on Reddit, where he informed his fans; "I left home when I was about 17 dropped out of high school and convinced Lamar to do the same lol. We grabbed our mattresses from our parents threw it in our friends shitty van and left one weekend and never came back home. I hated my name at the time though so I tried it as a stage name. It sounded cool. I took out the "e" because there was already a Canadian band named the weekend (copyright issues)."
Abel's first release came, anonymously, in 2011 with 3 songs, all produced by a producer called Jeremy Rose, who now goes by the name 'Zodiak'. The singer was a very camera shy, so didn't do interviews and rarely ever showed his face anywhere. This is also due to his urge to be a mysterious and underground artist - not knowing who the singer really is makes the character more interesting and makes you want to find out about them and hear more music. The songs were named: 'What You Need', 'Loft Music' and 'The Morning'. Since then; Abel and Jeremy have parted ways due to a reason that no one is too sure about. Jeremy has spoke on the subject saying that he didn't give him credit and hasn't contacted him since - but that was from an interview with Vice in 2012. Although Jeremy produced the songs, after the two stopped working together, Abel started working with producers 'Doc McKinney' and 'Illangelo' who added a touch of their own onto the songs. This is how the final productions sounded:
Something was in the works slightly before this however, which isn't that known about. Tesfaye didn't only work with Jeremy Rose. He had a few studio sessions with a producer called 'T-Minus' who has since worked with artists like Drake, Justin Bieber, Travis Scott, Nicki Minaj and a dazzling handful of others, moreover he has made a name for himself and has become very successful. At this point in time T-Minus doesn't have any official releases with The Weeknd, however there are 3 videos, from 2008, which show T-Minus figuring out chords and creating instrumentals while Abel freestyles over them.
It's clearly evident here that he has a good voice, capable of reaching some very high notes, but the music being created wasn't anything like what was to come in the next few years. Another thing that happened before the release of the 3 songs was the leak of a mixtape, although there is a slight confusion about this subject. The mixtape, titled 'The Noise', was created with producers 'The Noise' and 'Kid Classic' who have not gathered very strong fanbases unlike the mysterious singer they were working with. It is believed to have been produced in 2009, but was leaked after Abel's first official mixtape release. He hasn't really said anything about the leak, except for a tweet from 2012 which reads: "noise "ep" was bunch of songs leaked by salty producers and found AFTER HOB (House Of Balloons) dropped. demo's written as a teen to get recognition. xo.".
You may have noticed, if you watched the videos, the 'XO' logo at the start of the video, along with the same two letters at the end of the tweet - this was the name of his creative team and is now the name, and logo, for his record label; 'XO Records'. Lamar, the friend who dropped out of school with Abel, is of course an integral part of this team. Others involved are; Wassim 'Sal' Slaily who is now the CEO of 'XO Records' and Amir 'Cash' Esmailian, both of which are co-founders of the record label and co-managers of The Weeknd.
So now, these 3 songs; 'What You Need', 'Loft Music' and 'The Morning' are all out on YouTube - what's next? Abel decided to continue releasing music. More specifically, he uploaded 9 songs, not in running order, which would turn out to be his first mixtape: 'House Of Balloons'.
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