The Weeknd

In retrospect, The Weeknd should have been featured in this space a long time ago. But he is an artist who sneaks up on you. Tesfaye, who doesn’t do a lot of press and seemingly prefers relative anonymity behind The Weeknd, is someone who emerged from the YouTube trenches nearly fully formed as a star.

After uploading several songs to YouTube, The Weeknd caught the attention of fellow Canadian Drake, who featured the songs on his own blog and generated further interest beyond already substantial word of mouth.

The tracks were remastered and, with the addition of some new material, were released as Trilogy, and catapulted The Weeknd from YouTube into the stratosphere. The combination of atmospheric, brooding music with undeniably sexy lyrics landed The Weeknd on numerous end-of-year “ones to watch” lists to ring in 2012.

Take a look at The Weeknd’s Pollstar tour history and it’s hard to say he is an “emerging” touring artist. He was snapped up by William Morris Endeavor’s Marc Geiger for agency representation and his first major headline date is a 2,200-cap sellout at Montreal’s Metropolis in March 2013.

The Weeknd followed that with a much-buzzed-about Coachella appearance that kicked off his first major American tour that in short order produced sellouts at such venues including the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., and the Fonda in Los Angeles.  

High profile supports with Justin Timberlake and Drake took up much of 2013, as did some key movie placements, culminating with a sultry hit single “Earned It” on the “Fifty Shades Of Grey” soundtrack to close out 2014.

Whatever low profile persona Tesfaye hoped to maintain probably ends there. The Weeknd is poised to take his career to the next level with several American major festival appearances including Coachella, Lollapalooza, the Roots Picnic and Sweetlife.