The gesture invoked Tesfaye’s earliest music and drew a line from that work to his current stature. He also played a sample of “Happy House,” the 1980 song by British post-punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees, which is doubtful about the possibility of domestic joy. As they readied Tesfaye’s television debut, they decided to shoot it there.Īt the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, Tesfaye performed his hits: glistening songs that threaten to conceal the desperation and degradation at their core. Much of the home is visible over the course of The Idol. In one set of these seats, Tesfaye and Levinson wrote together after Levinson temporarily moved in.
We were looking out onto the backyard, where an early evening fog draped over an infinity pool and cabana area. The grinning, wounded villain of Tesfaye’s songs is a heavily compromised figure but not a half-hearted one.Īnd yet, sinking into a couch in his cavernous living room, he acknowledged some apprehension about this next career leap. In all cases, he has turned his primary subjects-shame, dissolution, seduction-over and over, fusing glitter and chaos.
Within a few years he was seeking full-on global pop success, and it led him to a string of number one hits, stadium tours, and a Super Bowl performance.
As the lore goes, he dropped out of his Toronto high school, dragged his mattress out of his mother’s apartment, and held a job folding T-shirts at American Apparel while a post on the blog for Drake’s label stoked his initial hype. His tendency toward grandeur, evident early on, belied his station. In 2010, when he began anonymously releasing music as The Weeknd on YouTube, Tesfaye developed a cult of personality around his self-obfuscation, partly out of necessity. It’s an appealing framing device for Tesfaye, and one he’s turned to himself as he’s become one of a handful of monoculture-style pop stars left. Photograph by Mark Seliger Styled by Matthew Henson. Clothing, shoes, and socks by Prada watch by Rolex.
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