Abel Tesfaye has been played on NTS shows including From The Depths w/ Drakeford, with Anima Pt. 1 first played on 26 January 2026.

Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, also known as The Weeknd, is a R&B/pop/hip-hop singer, songwriter, producer and actor, born February 16th, 1990, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is one of the most popular artists of the current generation, being commonly compared to Michael Jackson, and owns global hits, such as "Blinding Lights", "The Hills", "Can't Feel My Face" and etc.

Before becoming The Weeknd, Abel used former aliases, as 'The Noise' and 'Kin Kane'. His most-predominent stage name is a tribute to, when he dropped out of high school and left his house and family, with his friend and currently creative director La Mar Taylor, "in one weekend and never came home". Abel started his career in August of 2009, releasing music anonymously on his YouTube channel. A year later, he met Jeremy Rose, which produced Tesfaye's debut mixtape House of Balloons, one of his most publicly acclaimed works ever since. The mixtape was later included in the compilation album Trilogy, along with two other mixtapes, Thursday and Echoes of Silence. Tesfaye gained more recognition after meeting Drake and his first performance in the OVO Festival. He contributed on writing four songs and featuring on Crew Love, on "Take Care", Drake's second album, released November 15th, 2011.

Since 2012, Tesfaye has released 5 studio albums, 2 EPs and 2 compilation albums, sold over 75 million records, won four Grammy awards, 20 Billboard Music Awards, 22 Juno Awards, six American Music Awards, two MTV Video Music Awards, a Latin Grammy Award, and nominations for an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. He is the first Canadian artist to earn four diamond-certified singles from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), as well as the first artist to simultaneously hold the top three spots on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. "Blinding Lights" became the most-streamed song in Spotify history, and is ranked as the greatest Hot 100 song in Billboard history. Tesfaye was listed by Time as one of the world's most influential people in 2020, and was dubbed the "world's most popular artist" by Guinness World Records in 2023. An advocate for racial equality and food security, he was appointed a World Food Programme Goodwill Ambassador in 2021.