Sex, Drugs and R&B: Inside the Weeknd’s Dark Twisted Fantasy
Spend just five minutes with him, though, and he reveals himself: sweet, soft-spoken, surprisingly earnest. When I tell him he’s not what I expected, he nods. “When people meet me, they say that I’m really kind — contrary to a lot of my music.”
When talking about his art and his career, Tesfaye is blessed with a towering self-confidence and has no hesitation about declaring his own greatness. “People tell me I’m changing the culture,” he says. “I already can’t turn on the radio. I think I’m gonna drop one more album, one more powerful body of work, then take a little break — go to Tokyo or Ethiopia or some shit.” Hearing him boast about talking shop with Bono, or name-dropping “Naomi Campbell, who’s a good friend of mine now,” you may be tempted to see a diva in the making; or you may see a 25-year-old guy who’s stoked and incredulous to be in the position he’s in.
After rehearsal, Tesfaye is in the greenroom with his two managers, 31-year-old Amir “Cash” Esmailian and 35-year-old Tony Sal. Cash is a first-generation Iranian-Canadian sweetheart who occasionally yells things into the phone like, “You may as well bend me over a table, bro!”; Sal is a courtly charmer who grew up in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war and now dates a former Miss USA. Right now, they’re trying to figure out how to get from Norway, where Tesfaye will be for promo in a few days, to Texas, where he has a show. According to their tour manager, the only commercial flight from Oslo to Austin is at 8 a.m.
“What about noncommercial?” asks Cash. The tour manager says he’ll check, but they’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Cash looks around and grins: “The label’s paying for it, right?”
I feel so much better today. I feel amazing right now.”
The next afternoon, Tesfaye is in a seventh-floor suite at his Soho hotel, having spent most of the previous 18 hours in bed. (There was also a B12 shot involved.) When a bellman brings in a silver tray with a selection of waters, Tesfaye pours himself a glass. “I just started being fancy, to be honest,” he says. “Like, I just started learning how to pronounce what I’m wearing.” He imitates a snooty shopgirl: “‘It’s not Bal-mane, it’s Bal-mahn.‘ ‘Oh, sorry!'”