In Honor of The Weeknd's 36th Birthday, Let's Discuss How He's The Godfather of Gothic R&B and More of An Afro-Gothic Icon Than People Realize:
To start off, I wanna wish a happy 36th birthday today to Abel Makonnen Tesfaye aka The Weeknd! I've been an XO fan since the year of 2013-2014, which would officially be the year timeline that I would start listening to his music. I first discovered The Weeknd via his feature on Sia and Diplo's "Elastic Heart" off of the soundtrack to "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire", his feature on Ariana Grande's "Love Me Harder" and then his own song "Wicked Games" off of debut mixture "House of Balloons". From the moment I discovered him in these moments, and then listening to "Kiss Land" on top of that as well as the non album single "King of the Fall" and then "Beauty Behind The Madness", it was history from there.
So with that out of the way, I wanna take this post further and establish something real quick.
*stands up from my seat, taps the mic, clears throat and speaks loud enough so the audience can hear me*:
The Weeknd is the godfather of dark alternative R&B and gothic R&B, is an underrated Afro-goth icon who made it, and Trilogy--especially House of Balloons--is an Afro-alt-goth / Afro-gothic masterpiece.
Trust me. He's way more goth than skeptics want to acknowledge.
In fact, not only is The Weeknd the godfather of gothic R&B, but it's also safe to say that The Weeknd is the biggest Afro-goth icon that blew up and made it big. 😏😊🖤🖤
And think about it: he released "House of Balloons" back in 2011. That was when the world of experimental alt R&B was just starting to bloom and when gothic R&B at that time was rarely heard of; and at that time it was unlike anything that anybody ever heard of, making it and the other two mixtapes to follow afterwards, "Thursday" and "Echoes of Silence", wildly ahead of their time.
On top of that, The Weeknd also gave darker depth, nuance and complexity to the lothario/playboy/bad boy/womanizer archetypes frequently seen in R&B and hip hop, making it more complicated, emotionally messy, morally ambiguous, wracked with broken vulnerability and wounded aggression and making it simultaneously more troubled and troubling--in his own words from the 2013 MTV "Making of Kiss Land" mini documentary: "What young men think but never say aloud". It's less club ready machismo and more akin to an Afro-gothic Byronic urban anti hero. Then The Weeknd also incoporating musical elements and motifs of his Ethiopian heritage and culture musically, sonically, artistically, vocally and even visually (as evidenced by the Afrofuturistic music video for "The Knowing"), further giving his brand of Afro-goth and gothic R&B a distinctly diasporic lens. Plus, c'mon people, he incorporated darkwave, ethereal wave and gothic rock in much of his earlier work--these genres are within the goth music umbrella. And he sampled artists like Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cocteau Twins--major OG pioneers in the world of goth music! Ya'll can't tell me that that doesn't ooze a pulsing gothic heartbeat at the core of his music.
And then The Weeknd's notable and distinct vocals.
That voice.
Haunting. Angelic. Cold. Wounded. Ghostly. Eerie. Soulful. Haunted. Weary. Mysterious. Otherworldly. Almost unsettling.
The Weeknd's voice, standing at a light lyric tenor and sounding like a mixture of The King of Pop and high flying Ethiopian vocalists such as Aster Aweke, becomes a character on its own in the musical and artistic world he builds and even his vocal delivery can be gothic (or in this case, paradoxical in being angelically gothic and gothicly angelic) depending on the song. Songs such as "Gone" is a prime example of Abel's high flying vocals combined with wordless singing, and he both evokes the vocal, musical and sonic lineage of his Ethiopian musical forebearers and pays homage to the wordless vocal lineage of Elisabeth Fraser of The Cocteau Twins. All of that's more within the lineage of ethereal wave and dark wave instead of mainstream confessional R&B.
Then he can sometimes switch up his delivery and, in cases like his rap singing in "Glass Table Girls"--the second half of "House of Balloons"--he can emote a lower register which can be unexpected and quietly unnerving, evoking bored menace and suspense reminiscient of Trent Reznor, and then Abel going from rap singing in a lower register then back to his high flying vocal delivery during the final lines adds another level of unpredictability that's creepy, suggesting he's reached a state of madness and it becomes even eerier and more unnerving and disturbing. That type of vocal duality is the most gothic sounding aspect of his artistry along with everything else. And adding to why The Weeknd, his artistry, imagery and persona was so compelling is the fact that he initially didn't show his face and kept it hidden in the shadows during the earlier parts of his career, cultivating an enigmatic mystique and sense of mystery that matched his music. If anything, this is also one of the most gothic decisions Abel ever made.
And as for songs such as "The Birds, Part 2"? That's by far, lyrically, thematically, musically, sonically and poetically, the absolute darkest and most emotionally gothic works in his discography. Here, the "Thursday woman"--who submits to being his lover only reserved for Thursday while still amongst multiple other women he sleeps with--is left so distraught over Abel that it culminates in an act of emotionally charged violence, hence the sound of crying and a gunshot at the beginning of the song. Though it's assumed that it's Abel who she shoots, the target is left intentionally ambiguous; and the only other and far worse possibility is the Thursday woman shooting herself and ending her own life, which, if that's the case, takes the song into even darker territory, along with the lyrics being laden with metaphorical crow symbolism. Then with Abel's haunting vocal performance that sounds like mourning and lament, oozing a deeply pained and depressed regret, brokenness and shame, it's also like what happens when the vampire drains the life out of the victim he seduces, then afterwards still reacts in shock, horror and quiet devastation at what he's done; a vampire that seduces and ensnares but still has a flash of a deep, albeit broken, wounded, fractured and haunted heart and conscience in spite of it (and enhancing the paradoxal, complex, complicated and messy, almost disconcerting nature of the Byronic gothic anti hero). I'll just post Genius.com's analysis of the song as a whole over the sound of crows cawing at the very end: "The non-vocal effects in this song add a lot to the somber, fatally depressing atmosphere. The crying from the “Lonely Star” that precedes the gun shot adds a mood of reluctance or guilt, but the audience also gets the sense that the girl felt cornered in Abel’s game and the pistol was only a last resort. Crows are known to be intelligent, sometimes solitary, and scavengerous creatures, painting a fair picture of The Weeknd’s character. However, the cultural symbolism that surrounds the crow adds a ton of characterization to Abel in the story, as they are also known to be magical, ominous, manipulative, and aware of higher perspectives than most creatures. The crow’s caw at the end could represent Abel revealing his true spiritual identity, that of a bird that used magical nights and pseudo-affection to emotionally kill this girl. These sounds and images truly make this one of Abel’s darkest yet most insightful pieces." If that's not gothic, then tell me what is!
Even as The Weeknd got bigger, that gothic pulse would remain even throughout his later albums Kiss Land (2013), The Beauty Behind The Madness (2015), Starboy (2016), My Dear Melancholy (2018) and After Hours (2020)--many of which integrated futuristic cyberpunk with gothic horror. (Keep in mind that I have to catch up with Dawn FM and Hurry Up Tomorrow, so stay tuned for those!)
So yeah. Abel Tesfaye a.k.a. The Weeknd is the godfather of gothic R&B and an Afro-goth icon and he deserves to be recognized and celebrated as such. I said what I said.
Happy birthday, Abel! XO for life! 🔥😎🎂✨🎉🎊
