Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, known professionally as The Weeknd, was born on 16 February 1990 in the Scarborough neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, to Ethiopian immigrant parents who separated when he was a toddler. He was raised largely by his mother, Samra, and his maternal grandmother, who spoke only Amharic to him at home, giving him a fluency in the language that he has credited with shaping his early musical taste alongside Ethiopian records, Michael Jackson and Prince. He attended a French immersion school before transferring to Birchmount Collegiate Institute, but he dropped out at seventeen and moved into a shared flat in Parkdale with childhood friend La Mar Taylor, who later became his creative director, according to Wikipedia.

In 2011, Tesfaye began anonymously uploading brooding, atmospheric R&B tracks to YouTube under the alias The Weeknd, dropping the final “e” from “weekend” to avoid a trademark clash with a Canadian band. That year, he teamed up with managers Wassim “Sal” Slaiby and Amir “Cash” Esmailian, together with Taylor, to found the XO record label, releasing three free mixtapes in quick succession, House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence, all in 2011. The trilogy earned widespread critical acclaim for its dark, hazy sound and was later compiled into the retail album Trilogy in November 2012, which debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and went on to be certified platinum, according to uDiscover Music.

The Weeknd signed with Republic Records in 2012, with XO continuing as his own imprint under the label, and released his debut studio album, “Kiss Land,” in September 2013 to a number two debut on the Billboard 200. His true commercial breakthrough came with “Beauty Behind the Madness” in August 2015, which debuted at number one with 412,000 equivalent album units, the second largest sales week of that year, and stayed atop the chart for three consecutive weeks. The album was propelled by the back to back number one singles “Can’t Feel My Face” and “The Hills,” the latter later certified diamond by the RIAA, according to The FADER.

The Weeknd’s 2019 single “Blinding Lights” became one of the most successful songs in chart history, spending a record 90 weeks inside the Billboard Hot 100 and later being ranked the greatest performing song in the chart’s history, surpassing Chubby Checker’s “The Twist.” He has won four Grammy Awards, including Best Urban Contemporary Album for both “Beauty Behind the Madness” and “Starboy,” alongside twenty Billboard Music Awards and twenty two Juno Awards, and in February 2023 he became the first artist to surpass 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify, according to Billboard.

On 7 February 2021, The Weeknd headlined the Super Bowl LV halftime show at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, becoming the first solo Canadian artist to top the bill for the NFL’s marquee entertainment slot. Because performers are traditionally unpaid for the appearance, his manager Wassim Slaiby confirmed that The Weeknd personally spent an estimated seven million dollars of his own money on the thirteen minute production, treating the show as a long term investment in his global profile rather than a direct payday, according to Forbes.

Puma named The Weeknd a global brand ambassador in September 2016, a partnership that produced the Puma x XO Parallel, his first signature footwear silhouette, which launched in 2017 and drew on military boot styling paired with the brand’s Ignite cushioning technology, according to XXL. H&M also tapped him as the face of its menswear push aimed at younger shoppers, replacing David Beckham, and released two capsule collections built around his XO branding in spring and autumn 2017, with the eighteen piece autumn line arriving in stores on 28 September that year, according to Billboard.

Beyond recording, The Weeknd has built XO into a broader label and creative operation since co-founding it in 2011 with Slaiby, Esmailian and Taylor, and he co-created the HBO drama series “The Idol” with director Sam Levinson, starring alongside Lily-Rose Depp. In December 2025, he closed a landmark catalogue financing partnership with Lyric Capital Group reported to be worth around one billion dollars, structured so that roughly three quarters of the sum was raised through debt while Lyric took a minority equity stake in future catalogue income, allowing The Weeknd and Slaiby to retain full ownership of his master recordings and publishing, a deal described as the first of its kind for a living solo artist, according to Variety.

In 2021, The Weeknd paid seventy million dollars for a roughly 33,000 square foot estate in the exclusive Lower Bel Air neighbourhood of Los Angeles, one of the priciest residential sales recorded in California that year. The off market deal saw him take over a home originally bought for 21.4 million dollars in 2015 by Dutch owners who spent three years and added around 13,000 square feet during a major renovation that included an indoor pool and spa complex, according to The Hollywood Reporter.