The Weeknd has made his ambiguity and seemingly elusive nature work in his favor. Cite his well-received projects House Of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes Of Silence as proof. However, he decided to break silence with Complex magazine in his first ever interview.
Damien Scott got the Toronto native to open up on a bevy of topics, including his forthcoming major label debut, Kiss Land, relationship with Drake, musical inspirations and more. See a few exerts from their sit down below.
On whether his mysterious persona is intentional
Yes and no. In the beginning, I was very insecure. I hated how I looked in pictures. I just fucking hated this shit, like, crop me out of this picture right now. I was very camera shy. People like hot girls, so I put my music to hot girls and it just became a trend. The whole “enigmatic artist” thing, I just ran with it. No one could find pictures of me. It reminded me of some villain shit. But you can’t escape the Internet. There are super fans, and I was really testing their patience. At the end of the day you can’t deny the music. That was my whole thing: I’m going to let the music speak for itself. I’ll show them that this is what I do. But I’m very good at letting shit slide. If I wasn’t…
On his contributions to Drake’s Take Care
“Crew Love,” “Shot for Me,” and “The Ride” were supposed to be on ‘House of Balloons.’ I wanted to come out with like 14 records. I felt like “The Ride” was the last one, and it wasn’t done yet. [Drake] heard it and he was like, “This shit’s crazy.” I was hungry at that time. I was like, “Dude, take anything.”
Yeah, he told me he wouldn’t be able to do the album without me. You can read it on the credits that he thanked me. I don’t know if that’s him being generous, but I gave him a lot of records. I made “Practice.”
He really wanted to incorporate my sound, which was inspired by his sound. It’s not like, “Oh, I had the ‘new sound.'” It was just easier for him to relate to me, because it was his sound with an edge. It was that Toronto sound. So yeah, you’re right. I feel like I could have been that for his album.
Read the full interview here. Hit the following pages to see the cover, photos, and video that resulted from the August/September cover shoot.
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Photo: Complex
