Days before hitting the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, global pop music superstar The Weeknd returns to his roots by reclaiming his real identity, Abel Tesfaye, and promising that he will eventually “kill” his stage name.
On social networks, like Twitter, where he has 17 million subscribers, and Instagram (55.6 million), the accounts of the interpreter of Blinding Lights made the two identities coexist on Monday.
An evolution that owes nothing to chance, explained the 33-year-old artist born in Canada to Ethiopian parents, in a recent interview with the fashion magazine Wwhere he speaks of “a cathartic experience”.
“I come at a time when I am preparing to close the Weeknd chapter. I will continue to make music, maybe as Abel, maybe as The Weeknd. But I still want to kill The Weeknd. And I will. One day or another. I really try to get rid of this skin and be reborn, ”he develops.
He nevertheless indicates that he will use his stage name one last time for his next album, on which he is currently working. “As The Weeknd, I said everything I could say. »
With his stage name, the Toronto-born artist, who had started performing on YouTube, established himself as one of the big names in music of the 2010s and 2020s, between pop and dark R&B.
In the midst of a pandemic in 2020, his fourth album, After Hours, had been a worldwide success, the song Blinding Lights becoming the most listened to on Spotify in 2020.
After several appearances in the cinema, Abel Tesfaye will occupy one of the leading roles, alongside Lily-Rose Depp, in a highly anticipated series from HBO, The Idolpreviewed at 76e Cannes Film Festival, which opens on Tuesday.
The series, produced and written by the singer, with Sam Levinson (Euphoria), tells the story of a pop diva who crosses paths with a cult guru after a nervous breakdown.