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BIOGRAPHY

Abel Tesfaye (born February 16th, 1990) is a 21 year old Canadian recording artist, rapper, writer, musician and producer who goes by the stage name The Weeknd from Scarborough ,Toronto, Ontario. He’s of Ethiopian descent, born christian.Influenced by Michael Jackson also iconic music greats as The Beatles , Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan , Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Lennon, Syd Barrett,, Stevie Wonder and emcee's like Mos Def, Lupe Fiasco, Wu Tang, Kanye West, Consquence and more. One of his favorite album’s is Pink Flloyd’s Echoes , an album which inspired the title for the mixtape Echoes Of Silence.

KIN KANE & BULLEEZ N NERDZ



In 2008



Abel Tesfaye and fellow Scarborough upcoming rapper Jesse Ray formed the Rap/RNB duo Bulleez n Nerdz, Abel went under the stage name Kin Kane, (Kin - connected, related by blood). The two had great chemistry performing together at parties & decided to make songs together. They performed their first song for, Godzilla , the first track they had ever done together, After loving their personality & music he introduced them to his upcoming Toronto producer Kashif Majeed better known as Kid Klassic who was working at the time with a female R&B/POP group called Mynt. At that time Abel was writing RNB songs for other artists trying to make a library of material and the duo were working on some mixtape tracks, a first single was slated for release early 2009.



In June 2011



A song entitled Krispy by fellow Toronto rapper Mental McFly aka Rex B Mental (who Abel had been working with at the time) leaked. A few months later on December 7th, a member on Youtube leaked another track called When The Grip Hits, the original version for Krispy and In The Mood.





On December 4th 2011



A Radio Interview with Blu Orchid Media/Entertainment hit youtube, with the duo talking about their influences, upcoming projects and freestyling.

ABEL TESFAYE & THE NOISE

In July 2008



after working with Entyse Entertainment’s producer Kashif Majeed aka Kid Klassic during his time as part of the duo Bulleez n Nerdz, Abel, Majeed & two other upcoming vocalists Tyler Done & Natalie Di Luccio formed a production/writing team called The Noise. They were signed by Lavish Life Management , a management company run by Brendan Malette, for producers and songwriters which shops their material to major label artists in order to get their beats, or songs, out onto airwaves and albums. Also signed to lavish life at that time was producer T-Minus whom Abel had worked with









On May 23rd 2011



Complex released the track Birthday Suit, a demo for Drake which Abel had also recorded with The Noise. The track got members on Kanyetothe interested in what other early Abel Tesfaye material may be floating around on the internet so they started searching. member by the name of Djamiel did some Google’n & found The Noise & Abel’s Myspace, Which lead another member to find a snippet of “Release Me” from The Noise Myspace, Djamiel later then posted 4 snippets for Do It, Rescue You, Appointment & X-Ray which also included download links. they had found and it started hitting other blogs like crazy. Ear Milk then put them all together and named it The Noise EP.













On December 8th



two more tracks Cure & Superhero (an alternate version of Rescue you) leaked and a day later a song called Party.







On the 23rd of December 2011



the full version of X-Ray was released by a YouTube member All nine songs were later released as a mixtape entitled Before The Balloons put together by jayxmonsta at kanyetothe & included 2 bonus tracks, Favorite One Night Stand & Drugs In My Body Remix







SHE'S SO LOVELY, JEREMY ROSE & THE WEEKEND



In October 2009



Abel Tesfaye along with friends La Mar Taylor & Hyghly Alleyne teamed up to form ” She’s So Lovely ” (SSL), a crew creating and redefining the relationship between video, photography and music. While setting up an online magazine their WORK was found on their Tumblr & Website. & on the sites Swagg ink and Swagg T.V where they interviewed & photoshot the likes of Big Sean, Freddie Gibbs & Amber Rose

In June 2010



Abel met an upcoming producer from Toronto, by the name of Jeremy Rose (aka Zodiac) at a mutal friends house party, after hearing Abel freestyle over one of his beats (What You Need) Jeremy asked Abel if he wanted to work on some dark rnb songs. Jeremy had already done the instrumentals & production for the songs years before and all that was missing was the vocals, for example, the instrumental for What You Need was one of the first songs Rose had produced back in 2007 & the first song Abel had put vocals on. The duo recorded 4 songs together, What You Need which sampled Aaliyah’s Rock The Boat , Loft Music which sampled Beach House’s Gila, The Party which also sampled Beach House’s Master of None and a screwed version of The Morning. All of which were demos and early versions. They had also been working on a rap album but it would be scrapped later on.









On October 12th 2010



The duo released their first single What You Need as The WeekEnd , with Abel Tesfaye on the vocals and Jeremy Rose handling the production. Two months later on





December 13/14th



Drake had introduced them on his Blog a day prior, their second single, The Morning started hitting the blogs & a day after

December 15th



Loft Music





he's duo starting gaining recognition online & were featured that same month in The Fader, mixpakrecords, Robin-waters & The NYTimes, being described as a breath of fresh air, going on to craft some of their own beautifully dressed R&B hits, capturing smooth vocal riffs alongside glitched and dragged beats even getting a shout out from beatmaker extraordinaire Flying Lotus . A Mixtape was supposed to be released during Christmas but was never finished due to a falling out between the two which led to their split but with Jeremy Rose agreeing that Abel can keep the songs they had already recorded.It’s not clear why the two parted ways but it’s rumored that shortly after the fallof 2010 due to “creative differences” Rose ended the relationship. Tesfaye & the rest of the SSL crew began to seek out new producers to work with. Upcoming Canadian producer, Carlo “Illangelo” Montagnese was brought in for multiple studio sessions. An agreement was reached between Rose & Tesfaye, which allowed Tesfaye to keep the stems (demos) off all their previous work.

www.thefader.com/2010/12/13/the-weekend-how-did-we-miss-this/ http://www.mixpakrecords.com/blog/2010/12/enter-the-shes-so-lovely-crew/ http://robin-waters.com/blog/2010/11/the-boys-of-shes-so-lovely/ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/arts/music/02playlist.html?_r=4&ref=music

On December 18th



Abel decided to keep the name but dropped the E, operating under the stage name The Weeknd .

THE WEEKND, THE BUILD UP & HOUSE OF BALLOONS

In January 2011



and after officially operating under the stage name The Weeknd, Abel started working with producer Ill Angelo, a video for the pair in the Studio had been released by the SSL crew but was then removed. One of the first songs they worked on was High for This, a song which was co-written and produced by Canadian L.A based producer Cirkut in 2010.



While working with Angelo, Abel was introduced to veteran producer, musician & guitarist Martin Doc Mckinney who had previously worked with the likes of Esthero & Res, Angelo was Mckinney’s protege & right hand. The three got in the studio together & starting working on the ‘masterpiece’ through the first 3 months of 2011. At that time, the 3 songs which were previously released at the end of 2010 started resurfacing under ” The Weeknd ”, after crew members and Mckinney started re-tweeting & posting them, building a hype for what this mysterious Toronto rnb ‘act’ had to offer.

https://twitter.com/docmckinney/status/25​837437741699072

On Feb 21st



The Weeknd opened a twitter account, tweeting the line “i’m on that **** that you can’t smell baby.. so put down your perfume”, a week later on march 6th , the first song under his new alias, ” Wicked Games ” was released, produced by Doc Mckinney, the next day Drake tweeted another line from the same song, posting it on his OVO blog with the tag “OVOXO Gang, Faded Too Long” leading to more hype & anticipation knowing that this “act/group” was somehow affiliated with October’s very own. The Weeknd took to twitter thanking everyone for the response to the song and that this was only the beginning & also shutting down rumors that he was a group or a Duo Act .



On March 12th



The Weeknd & his crew started a Tumblr blog, headlining it “XO Til We Overdose”, a line which in someway he explained, also redefining and re-introducing his crew (which were previously known as She’s So Lovely).

https://twitter.com/theweekndxo/status/45930866693775360

On March 20th



and after promising more songs & tweeting it’s lyrics The Weeknd released another song titled Coming Down also produced by Doc Mckinney, he later took to twitter asking his fans to be online at 8 PM then posting a picture/sign shortly after reading that a mixtape of all the songs released & more would be up on the website the-weeknd.com in 2hrs, causing the site to crash immediately after it’s upload





In almost 3 weeks the mixtape entitled House Of Balloons was downloaded 200,000 times from The Weeknd’s official website alone creating a frenzy on the internet and music blogs. The Mixtape contained 9 tracks https://www.kanyetothe.com/forum/index.php?topic=309347.0











