Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (born February 16, 1990), known professionally as The Weeknd, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer. He began his recording career in 2010, anonymously uploading several songs to YouTube. A year later, The Weeknd released the mixtapes House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence, and quickly earned a following and critical recognition from several mainstream publications due to his dark style of R&B and the mystique surrounding his identity.
In 2012, The Weeknd signed with Republic Records, and re-released the mixtapes as part of the compilation album Trilogy (2012). He followed it with his debut studio album Kiss Land (2013), and followed that with Beauty Behind the Madness (2015); the latter became a global bestseller, and contained the number-one singles "Can't Feel My Face" and "The Hills". Beauty Behind the Madness also won Best Urban Contemporary Album and was nominated for Album of the Year at the 59th Grammy Awards. The Weeknd's third album, Starboy (2016), spawned similar commercial success, including the number-one single of the same name, while it also won Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 60th Grammy Awards. His fourth album, After Hours (2020), featured the number-one singles "Heartless" and "Blinding Lights"...
