The Weeknd is over. The Canadian pop star, one of the most streamed artists in the world, now wants to be known by his birth name Abel Tesfaye.
The move comes a week after the Blinding Lights singer, who updated his social media accounts on Monday to reflect his new identity, spoke about his plan to “kill The Weeknd” to W Magazine.
“I'm going through a cathartic path right now. It's getting to a place and time where I'm getting ready to close The Weeknd chapter,” he said.
“I’ll still make music, maybe as Abel, maybe as The Weeknd. But I still want to kill The Weeknd. And I will. Eventually. I’m definitely trying to shed that skin and be reborn.”
He also suggested his upcoming album may be his last as The Weeknd.
“The album I’m working on now is probably my last hurrah as The Weeknd,” he told W Magazine. “This is something that I have to do. As The Weeknd, I’ve said everything I can say.”
Tesfaye, 33, adopted the name The Weeknd early in his career when he dropped out of school.
“I left home when I was about 17, dropped out of high school,” he told fans on Reddit in 2013. “We grabbed our mattresses from our parents, threw it in our friend's van and left one weekend and never came back home. I hated my name at the time though so I tried it as a stage name. It sounded cool. I took out the 'e' because there was already a Canadian band named The Weekend.”
But this is not the first time Tesfaye has contemplated discarding his adopted name.
“Abel formally known as The Weeknd?” he wrote last year in a tweet that received thousands of likes.
Born in Toronto to Ethiopian immigrants, Tesfaye found fame on YouTube in 2010 when he uploaded his original songs. His popularity rose after the rapper Drake shared the tracks on his blog.
Tesfaye has since released five studio albums, starting with 2013's Kiss Land. He's won multiple awards, including four Grammys, and broke many records. Blinding Lights, from the 2020 album After Hours, is still the most-streamed song on Spotify, with more than 3.5 billion streams.
The singer, who has produced and acted in the HBO series The Idol, is set to make an appearance at the Cannes Film Festival next week to introduce the show.
The Idol, which Tesfaye co-created with Euphoria creator Sam Levinson and producing partner Reza Fahim, stars Lily-Rose Depp as an aspiring pop idol who has a nervous breakdown and plans a comeback. She then begins a relationship with a cult leader, played by Tesfaye, and the pair embark on a journey that could make or break one or both of them.
The show was inspired by a conversation Tesfaye had with Levinson.
“Abel came to us with a pitch,” Levinson told W Magazine. “He said something that I’ll always remember: ‘If I wanted to start a cult, I could.’ What he meant is that his fans were so loyal and devoted that they would follow him anywhere. That was the germ of the idea for The Idol: what happens when a pop star falls for the wrong guy and no one speaks up.”
LIGUE 1 FIXTURES
All times UAE ( 4 GMT)
Friday
Nice v Angers (9pm)
Lille v Monaco (10.45pm)
Saturday
Montpellier v Paris Saint-Germain (7pm)
Bordeaux v Guingamp (10pm)
Caen v Amiens (10pm)
Lyon v Dijon (10pm)
Metz v Troyes (10pm)
Sunday
Saint-Etienne v Rennes (5pm)
Strasbourg v Nantes (7pm)
Marseille v Toulouse (11pm)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The years Ramadan fell in May
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The%20specs
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Read more about the coronavirus
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Salah in numbers
€39 million: Liverpool agreed a fee, including add-ons, in the region of €39m (nearly Dh176m) to sign Salah from Roma last year. The exchange rate at the time meant that cost the Reds £34.3m - a bargain given his performances since.
13: The 25-year-old player was not a complete stranger to the Premier League when he arrived at Liverpool this summer. However, during his previous stint at Chelsea, he made just 13 Premier League appearances, seven of which were off the bench, and scored only twice.
57: It was in the 57th minute of his Liverpool bow when Salah opened his account for the Reds in the 3-3 draw with Watford back in August. The Egyptian prodded the ball over the line from close range after latching onto Roberto Firmino's attempted lob.
7: Salah's best scoring streak of the season occurred between an FA Cup tie against West Brom on January 27 and a Premier League win over Newcastle on March 3. He scored for seven games running in all competitions and struck twice against Tottenham.
3: This season Salah became the first player in Premier League history to win the player of the month award three times during a term. He was voted as the division's best player in November, February and March.
40: Salah joined Roger Hunt and Ian Rush as the only players in Liverpool's history to have scored 40 times in a single season when he headed home against Bournemouth at Anfield earlier this month.
30: The goal against Bournemouth ensured the Egyptian achieved another milestone in becoming the first African player to score 30 times across one Premier League campaign.
8: As well as his fine form in England, Salah has also scored eight times in the tournament phase of this season's Champions League. Only Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, with 15 to his credit, has found the net more often in the group stages and knockout rounds of Europe's premier club competition.
Coffee: black death or elixir of life?
It is among the greatest health debates of our time; splashed across newspapers with contradicting headlines - is coffee good for you or not?
Depending on what you read, it is either a cancer-causing, sleep-depriving, stomach ulcer-inducing black death or the secret to long life, cutting the chance of stroke, diabetes and cancer.
The latest research - a study of 8,412 people across the UK who each underwent an MRI heart scan - is intended to put to bed (caffeine allowing) conflicting reports of the pros and cons of consumption.
The study, funded by the British Heart Foundation, contradicted previous findings that it stiffens arteries, putting pressure on the heart and increasing the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke, leading to warnings to cut down.
Numerous studies have recognised the benefits of coffee in cutting oral and esophageal cancer, the risk of a stroke and cirrhosis of the liver.
The benefits are often linked to biologically active compounds including caffeine, flavonoids, lignans, and other polyphenols, which benefit the body. These and othetr coffee compounds regulate genes involved in DNA repair, have anti-inflammatory properties and are associated with lower risk of insulin resistance, which is linked to type-2 diabetes.
But as doctors warn, too much of anything is inadvisable. The British Heart Foundation found the heaviest coffee drinkers in the study were most likely to be men who smoked and drank alcohol regularly.
Excessive amounts of coffee also unsettle the stomach causing or contributing to stomach ulcers. It also stains the teeth over time, hampers absorption of minerals and vitamins like zinc and iron.
It also raises blood pressure, which is largely problematic for people with existing conditions.
So the heaviest drinkers of the black stuff - some in the study had up to 25 cups per day - may want to rein it in.
Rory Reynolds
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
Dengue%20fever%20symptoms
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UAE%20SQUAD
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MATCH INFO
Borussia Dortmund 0
Bayern Munich 1 (Kimmich 43')
Man of the match: Joshua Kimmich (Bayern Munich)
Zayed Sustainability Prize
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Milestones on the road to union
1970
October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar.
December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.
1971
March 1: Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.
July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.
July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.
August 6: The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.
August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.
September 3: Qatar becomes independent.
November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.
November 29: At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.
November 30: Despite a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa.
November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties
December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.
December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 240hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 390Nm at 3,000rpm
Transmission: eight-speed auto
Price: from Dh122,745
On sale: now
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
