The Weeknd

The Weeknd, stage name of Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (Amharic: አበል መኮነን ተስፋዬ, 'äbäl Mäkonän Täsəfayē), is a Canadian singer, actor, singer-songwriter and producer, born on 16 February 1990 in Toronto, Canada. On 1 January 2023, his single Blinding Lights became the most-streamed song of all time on Spotify, overtaking Ed Sheeran's Shape of You.

He began his music career in 2009, anonymously releasing music on YouTube. He founded the XO label in 2011 and released his first mixtapes House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence. He quickly gained success and recognition from several media outlets for his dark contemporary R&B style and the mystery surrounding his identity.

In 2012, he signed with Republic Records and reissued the mixtapes as the compilation album Trilogy. His debut studio album, Kiss Land, was released in 2013. His second album, Beauty Behind the Madness, released in 2015 and featuring the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles Can't Feel My Face and The Hills, won the award for "best urban contemporary album" at the Grammy Awards. It ranks among the best-selling albums of the year. Starboy, his third album, was a commercial success and also won the best urban contemporary album award at the Grammy Awards. His fourth album, After Hours, features several songs that topped the Billboard Hot 100, such as Heartless, Save Your Tears and Blinding Lights; the latter single became the first song in history to spend more than a year in the Billboard Hot 100 top 10 and, as of April 2026, is the most-streamed song in the history of the Spotify music platform, with 5.3 billion streams worldwide.

The singer has won several awards and has been nominated for an Academy Award in the best original song category. He holds several chart records, becoming the first artist to have multiple songs in the same Billboard chart. In February 2015, Canada's Walk of Fame awarded him the Allan Slaight Award. Elton John ranked him among the 100 most influential people of 2020 for Time magazine.

He has a notable voice with falsetto and vibrato. He has influenced artists across many genres of contemporary music, notably pop, hip-hop and R&B.

He became, in 2023 and 2025, the most-streamed artist on Spotify with more than 100 million monthly listeners, overtaking Bruno Mars.