Tesfaye slowly began revealing himself in 2011 with a handful of live performances. Their loyalty was to the songs and, in a way, to the idea of the Weeknd. His reticence was an asset - fans devoured the music without being distracted by a personality. The only photos of him in circulation were deliberately obscured he didn’t do interviews. When he began releasing music in 2010 - murky Dalí-esque R.&B., sung in an astrally sweet voice, vivid with details of life at the sexual and pharmacological extremes - Tesfaye chose to be a cipher. ‘‘Hey!’’ the guy shouted in desperation, fumbling for a name before landing on the wrong one: ‘‘A$AP Rocky!’’ Tesfaye turned his head and said, ‘‘C’mon, man,’’ arching an eyebrow, then picked up the pace.Įven though he had just performed for an audience of millions, Tesfaye was still, to many of them, a total stranger. Tesfaye gave him an amused half-smile and kept walking. When he reached the parking lot, a yappy talent wrangler for an entertainment-news show sensed an opportunity and asked for an interview. The performance was quick and sweaty, and seconds after it was over, Tesfaye was already speeding for the exit, stopping only for a quick embrace from Kendall and Kylie Jenner.
For two minutes, the singers traded vocal riffs and unflinching eye contact, Grande playing the naïf and Tesfaye the aggressor. When Tesfaye came out from the shadows midway through Grande’s performance, the crowd screamed. Until that song and, in a sense, that moment, Tesfaye had been a no-hit wonder: a cult act with millions of devotees and almost no mainstream profile. He was scheduled to make a surprise cameo here at the end of a Grande medley.
He’d just had his first flash of true pop success: ‘‘Love Me Harder,’’ his duet with Ariana Grande, the childlike pop star with the grown-up voice, cracked the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Casually, Tesfaye did some vocal warm-ups and sat indifferently as his underutilized makeup artist dabbed foundation under his eyes and balm on his lips. It spills out at the sides of his head and shoots up over it, like a cresting wave.
He stands 5-foot-7, plus a few more inches with his hair, an elaborate tangle of dreadlocks that he has been growing out for years, more or less letting it go where it wants. Tesfaye, 25, was dressed down by comparison, in a black corduroy jacket and paint-splattered jeans (Versace, but still).
In the middle of it all, Abel Tesfaye, better known as the Weeknd, remained calm, slow motion to everyone else’s warp speed.Īllergic to these sorts of scrums, he found his way to his trailer to hang with his friends, five or so fellow Canadians, all of them art-goth chic, wearing expensive sneakers and draped in luxurious, flowing black.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve linked up with my brothers Skepta and Kano, we come from the original school of Grime and it’s always a pleasure to be able to get back to the roots of where we came from,” Bashy told Fader.The scene backstage last November at the American Music Awards, that annual gathering of pop perennials and idiosyncratic arrivistes, was carnivalesque: Niall and Liam of One Direction toddled about trying to snap a picture with a selfie stick, while Zayn, their bandmate at the time, smoked coolly out of frame Ne-Yo was there in a leopard-print blazer two sizes too small Lil Wayne was wandering around, alone, wearing absurd shoes. The song is taken from the upcoming Alwayz Recording mixtape called ‘Concrete Jungle’. Skepta has joined forces with Kano and Bashy on a new Grime track called ‘See Me Again’. The Weeknd - 'Can't Feel My Face (Martin Garrix Remix)'ĭays before The Weeknd dropped his new album, Martin Garrix unveiled an EDM remix of it's latest single 'Can't Feel My Face.' Skepta, Kano and Bashy - 'See Me Again' There's actually a lot more than five new tracks you need to listen to this week, because finally The Weeknd has dropped his debut studio album, 'Beauty Behind The Madness.' Hit play and enjoy. “I know you like the feel of my body, let me take you for a ride in my ‘Rari,” sings Fetty. The New Jersey rapper adds his signature melodic vocals and ad-libs to the reworked pop song. Chris Brown - 'Body On Me (Fetty Wap Remix)'įetty Wap has joined Rita Ora and Chris Brown on the remix of their new single ‘Body On Me’. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis dropped their brand new single 'Downtown' this week, complete with an accompanying music video that looks more like a Broadway musical! Rita Ora Feat.