The Weeknd

The Weeknd is a Canadian singer-songwriter. He is known for his unconventional music production, artistic reinventions, and signature use of the falsetto register. He began releasing music anonymously in 2009. After co-founding the record label XO, he released three mixtapes in 2011, House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence. The mixtapes gained recognition for its style of contemporary and alternative R&B, alongside the mystery surrounding his identity. He signed with Republic Records in 2012, reissuing the mixtapes the same year as a compilation album titled Trilogy, and releasing his debut studio album, Kiss Land, in 2013. After a string of collaborations and film soundtrack contributions between 2013 and 2014, Tesfaye began to transition from alternative R&B in favor of a pop sound with his second and third studio albums, Beauty Behind the Madness (2015) and Starboy (2016), which both reached the top of the US Billboard 200. Beauty Behind the Madness included his first two Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, "Can't Feel My Face" and "The Hills", and Starboy spawned two more chart-toppers, its title track featuring Daft Punk, and after a remix with Ariana Grande, "Die for You". He returned to alternative R&B for his debut extended play, My Dear Melancholy (2018), which included the top-ten single "Call Out My Name". He explored the dream-pop and new wave genres for his fourth studio album, After Hours (2020), which spawned the chart record-setting single, "Blinding Lights", and two other US number-one singles, "Heartless" and "Save Your Tears". Tesfaye began exploring dance-pop, leading to his fifth album, Dawn FM (2022), which included the US top-ten single, "Take My Breath". In 2023, he co-created and starred in the HBO drama series The Idol, which was critically panned, although saw success in its accompanying soundtrack. Tesfaye has sold over 75 million records, making him one of the world's best-selling artists. He holds several streaming and Billboard chart records, and is the first Canadian artist to earn four diamond-certified singles from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and is the first artist to simultaneously hold the top three spots on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. "Blinding Lights" became the most-streamed song in Spotify history, the best-performing song in the Billboard Hot 100's history and the longest-charting song by a solo artist on the Billboard Hot 100. Tesfaye was listed by Time as one of the world's most influential people in 2020 and was dubbed the "world's most popular artist" by Guinness World Records in 2023. An advocate for racial equality and food security, he was appointed a World Food Programme Goodwill Ambassador in 2021. His accolades include four Grammy Awards, 20 Billboard Music Awards, 22 Juno Awards, six American Music Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards, a Latin Grammy Award and nominations for an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.