{"id":149046,"date":"2012-03-28T18:46:30","date_gmt":"2012-03-28T18:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socancom100stg.wpenginepowered.com\/the-weeknd-changes-the-game-for-hip-hop-and-rb\/"},"modified":"2012-03-28T18:46:30","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T18:46:30","slug":"the-weeknd-changes-the-game-for-hip-hop-and-rb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/the-weeknd-changes-the-game-for-hip-hop-and-rb\/","title":{"rendered":"The Weeknd changes the game for hip-hop and R&B"},"content":{"rendered":"

Les traductions pour les articles avant l\u2019automne 2013 ne sont pas disponibles pour le moment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cChanging the game\u201d and \u201ctakin\u2019 it to the next level\u201d are both well-worn clich\u00e9s in hip-hop and R&B. Everyone in these competitive genres, it seems, feels like they\u2019re bringing something new to the table. That\u2019s another empty clich\u00e9. Since the ’90s, both forms of music have received some criticism for abandoning creativity and churning out the same old, same old.<\/p>\n

Enter Toronto\u2019s The Weeknd (a.k.a. Abel Tesfaye), one of a handful of artists who\u2019s helping restore widespread faith and critical respect in both genres.<\/p>\n

A prodigious talent, the 20-something artist has already done something unheard of in music: in the space of nine months last year, he released three albums, House Of Balloons, Thursday<\/em>, and Echoes of Silence<\/em>, and posted them online, where they could be downloaded for free, just as if they were mixtapes. House of Balloons<\/em> reportedly racked up more than 200,000 downloads in the first three weeks, and Thursday caused website servers to intermittently crash \u2013 but not before a reported 180,000 downloads on the first day. Echoes of Silence<\/em> also caused a server crash. And he’s hit these heights with a unique new sound unlike anything else on the scene, often with disturbing music and lyrics.<\/p>\n

The Weeknd has also done it with almost no public appearances, not a single media interview, and no record label of any kind. He’s played exactly four live performances: two in Toronto, and one each in Guelph, Ont., and London, Ont. Although he is part of the Toronto-based production \/ management \/ musical \/ business collective known as OVO XO \u2013 the home of Drake \u2013 his meteoric rise has really been fuelled by his music.<\/p>\n

That, and a perfect storm of events. Following the release of House of Balloons, The Weeknd received a well-timed tweet by his OVO XO colleague Drake. Then he was name-checked by Jay-Z and Adele, and the mainstream started to take notice. The Weeknd landed on the coveted Polaris Prize shortlist for 2011 \u2013 a first for a free download. (Though he declined to perform at the Polaris gala.) He received raves fThis,\u201d was used in HBO\u2019s ad campaign for Entourage. He’s since done remixes by request for Florence and the Machine and Lady Gaga, and guest vocals on Drake\u2019s Take Care. The Weeknd will play a prime slot at the prestigious indie music festival Coachella in April, his first official U.S. appearance, alongside the likes of Radiohead, The Black Keys and Dr. Dre.<\/p>\n

The New York Times even dispatched a reporter to cover The Weeknd’s concert in Guelph last October. \u201cHe sang outrageously well, over woozy, narcotized rock by his stellar band,\u201d Jon Caramanica raved in his review. \u201cOn record his voice can be otherworldly, but he delivered it here with force… ‘The Birds Part One’ and ‘The Birds Part Two’ were gut punches, the Weeknd at his most bruising.\u201d<\/p>\n

The acclaim is rooted in the singular quality of The Weeknd’s words and music. Darkly sensual and cinematic, The Weeknd’s sound is one of the most hypnotic you’ll hear these days. His plaintive falsetto perfectly complements the lush, spacey atmospherics of his songs, featuring moody synth washes, crisp beats and eclectic samples. His frail voice is the perfect vehicle for self-examining lyrics that hint at what a vulnerable young man he might be. He\u2019s certainly capable of writing introspective, confessional and self-pitying songs.<\/p>\n

But, as with hip-hop\/R&B artists Tyler the Creator and Frank Ocean, of the U.S.-based Odd Futures collective, his work can also be intense and unsettling. The imagery is often debauched, nihilistic, narcotic, and darkly sexual. In the song \u201cInitiation,\u201d he uses drink and drugs to coerce an unwilling woman into group sex. Then there’s the lyrics to \u201cOutside\u201d: \u201cMake yourself at home \/ Because baby when I’m finished with you \/ You won’t want to go outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

His twitter tweets speak for themselves. \u201cI tapped into the darkest and the most shaded part of my mind for your entertainment,\u201d he tweeted last Nov. 4. A few days earlier, he sent this out: \u201cBy simply surrounding yourself with ugliness, darkness and evil can you really understand and appreciate real beauty.\u201d And there\u2019s also this: \u201cBut my lung’s so muddy, i love the way it tastes… drink it til i’m ugly baby fuck me when i’m faded.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lyric on record that captures The Weeknd\u2019s essence and the idea that he\u2019s the sort of game-changing jolt that hip-hop and R&B need: \u00ab\u00a0I\u2019m going to give you what you feign \/ I\u2019m the drug in your veins \/ Just fight through your pain \/ He\u2019s what you want \/ I\u2019m what you need.\u00a0\u00bb
\nBut how long he can continue to inhabit the persona he\u2019s created remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reclusive artist blows up with dark content, zero hype<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-non-categorise"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}