Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (born 16 February 1990), better known by his stage name The Weeknd, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer. Tesfaye has helped broadened R&B's musical palette to incorporate indie and electronic styles; his work has been categorized with the alternative R&B tag.
Tesfaye anonymously uploaded several songs to YouTube under the name "The Weeknd" in 2010 and released the critically acclaimed mixtapes House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence in 2011. The mixtapes were later remastered and rereleased on the compilation album Trilogy (2012), after he signed with Republic Records and created his own record label XO. Tesfaye has had three No. 1 releases (Beauty Behind the Madness in 2015, Starboy in 2016, and My Dear Melancholy in 2018) and a No. 2 release (Kiss Land in 2013) on the US Billboard 200. He has earned eight top-ten entries on the Billboard Hot 100: "Love Me Harder" with Ariana Grande; "Earned It"; "I Feel It Coming"; "Pray for Me" with Kendrick Lamar; "Call Out My Name"; and the number one singles "The Hills", "Can't Feel My Face", and "Starboy". In 2015, Tesfaye became the first artist to simultaneously hold the top three positions on the Billboard Hot R&B Songs chart with "Can't Feel My Face", "Earned It", and "The Hills".
