How the Weeknd Went From Broke in Canada to Sharing Stage With Taylor Swift
This is the summer of the Weeknd. Look around, the signs are everywhere: In July, the 25-year-old Canadian singer performed his absurdly catchy hit “Can’t Feel My Face” for 83,000 screaming Taylor Swift fans after she brought him out as a surprise guest at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. In August — by which time “Can’t Feel My Face” had shot to Number One on the charts — Stevie Wonder sang a few bars of the song at a concert in New York’s Central Park. Earlier this year, Katy Perry said his steamy single “Often” is her favorite song to have sex to. “I don’t know if I’m on top of the world,” says the Weeknd. “But I’m on top of my game, for sure.”
It’s past midnight in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood, and he’s hiding in his trailer on a break from an all-night video shoot. Outside, curious passersby — some Russian-accented locals, some teenage superfans — crane their necks for a glimpse of him. “It’s hard to walk down the street now,” he says, fiddling with five or six pairs of sunglasses on the table in front of him. “But I worked for that.”
“Can’t Feel My Face” is one of three Top Five smashes he’s scored this year, along with the plush, romantic ballad “Earned It” and the stormy jam “The Hills.” “He’s absolutely one of the biggest artists out right now, and he’s just getting going,” says Sharon Dastur, senior vice president of programming at radio giant iHeartMedia, which has the Weeknd in rotation at pop and hip-hop stations. “Not a lot of artists hit Number One this quickly and navigate all those formats.”
Dastur says the Weeknd’s new album, Beauty Behind the Madness, made a big impression when he played it for iHeartMedia programmers and executives at a private listening party during the company’s biannual Music Summit this month. (Actress-singer Hailee Steinfeld was there too.) Dastur expects the LP, due out August 28th, to generate enough hits for at least another year of heavy airplay: “It’s a long-term project, without a doubt.” She also notes the symbolic importance of Taylor Swift’s co-sign at MetLife. “Taylor knows pop culture better than anyone,” she says, “and you know the masses are looking to see who’s up on stage with her.”
A few years ago, pop domination was the last thing the Weeknd was aiming for. He kept his real name (Abel Tesfaye) and face hidden on his first releases in 2011 — a trio of dark, druggy R&B mixtapes that sounded like they’d been recorded toward the tail end of a True Detective orgy. When Republic Records senior vice president Nate Albert flew to Toronto that spring to court the Weeknd and his manager, they shut him down. “I thought there was no reason he couldn’t end up being a big pop voice,” says Albert. “But they had no interest.”