Cole, that’s a talent, it’s an art that I wish I could do.” Starboy does include some Ethiopian influences “False Alarm” concludes with a brief sample of singer Aster Aweke, whom he calls “the Whitney Houston of Ethiopia.This 2017 Clio Music Bronze winning entry titled 'The Weeknd - Starboy Album Experience' was entered for The Weeknd by Universal Music Group, New York.
“But I don’t know how to make political music-not yet, anyway. “Of course you get angry about what’s happening, and maybe you hear that in a record like ‘False Alarm,’ where I’m screaming and it could be what I just heard on the news,” he says. On the need of addressing social issues in his music: Mayors, governors, however we can figure it out, but it’s something that has to change really fast or it’s going to get much worse before it gets better.” I don’t think we should be waiting for a presidential election to change things-we need to change now. It’s being shown on cellphones, shown to people’s faces, and they still try to ignore it. “What is happening is very real,” he says, “and we’re at a time when you can’t hide it. On being raised as a son of Ethiopian immigrants and seeing the plight of refugees around the world: Everybody that works with me is very close to me, so I don’t think fame or any of that stuff really scares me.” I had been in the game for a bit-I was doing arenas already, without a hit single. “Maybe 25 is a good age to get hit with that, as opposed to some artists who get it when they’re 13 or 14 and they can’t handle it. Though theres probably a great deal that can be written about him lopping of his ungodly mane, Starboy isnt an album that particularly prizes reinvention. “Maybe age has something to do with it,” he says. Talk of being the King of the Fall aside, Tesfayes lyricism is laced with so much casual nihilism that it acts like a crutch rather than a character trait. His struggles of being in the spotlight all the time: It’s like they’re reading a page out of a novel-‘We want to make sure that at the end, it feels like the sun’s coming up, and maybe there’s a car chase.’ They can get technical, but it was interesting how they visualize making music.” “Their studio is like a spaceship, there’s a lot of gear,” he says, “but the way they make music, the way they explain it, is very cinematic. “He always showed love and kind of showed the world what I could do.” “Drake will always be like a big brother to me,” says Tesfaye.
That time Drake discovered his music and linked them on his personal website:
It’s like an R-rated film, it’s like Tarantino-I don’t know why, I just love the violence!” “That stuff just comes naturally,” he says with a shrug. You get criticized for it, but in the end it’s entertainment to me.” “Sometimes in the studio, we play Carlito’s Way and Scarface, put the sound on mute and try to make the music feel like that. “It’s just a villain you play, like Scarface,” he adds. “The album is like a giant collage.Usually I have a linear story line, but this one feels very schizophrenic-that’s probably the best way to describe it. The Weeknd on song inspirations within the project: (The last time Prince appeared on television was to present Tesfaye with one of his two American Music Awards last November.) “I just love Bowie, I think he’s the ultimate inventor,” he says, noting that the album’s title is partly a nod to Bowie’s 1972 anthem “Starman.” And Tesfaye was scheduled to go into Paisley Park studio with Prince when his longtime hero died in April. The Weeknd on how the Starboy album is “a thousand percent” influenced by deaths of David Bowie and Prince:
Read some of the highlights from the article below, or check out the story in full at The Wall Street Journal.