Mayor Tory declares February 7th ‘The Weeknd Day’

The Weeknd is the first Canadian to solo headline the Super Bowl Halftime show

Today, Toronto Mayor John Tory took to Twitter to announce that the City is “proud to proclaim February 7th The Weeknd Day in Toronto as we honour @theweeknd who is performing today at the #SuperBowl. Torontonians are cheering on proudly as he takes the stage at the #HalfTimeShow.”

“Millions of people will be watching him and cheering him on but we know Scarborough, a community he continues to support, will be cheering the loudest!” declared Mayor Tory.

“Toronto is proud that one of its own, The Weeknd, has achieved such enormous popularity both here at nome and on the world stage,” said Mayor Tory.

The Weeknd earned his first Grammy Award in 2015 for Best R & B Performance for his song “Earned It,” which also won an Academy Award. Toronto’s The Weeknd has won 10 Juno awards, five American Music Awards, nine Billboard Music Awards, two Guinness World Records and the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year for the single “Blinding Lights.”

Why is he called The Weeknd? The Weeknd told MTV he hated his name, Abel Makkonen Tesfaye and he came up with his name “The Weeknd” after dropping out of school, packing a bag and leaving home one weekend, never to return. The Weeknd removed the “e” to avoid copyright issues with a Canadian band that also went by the same name.

The Weeknd told MTV “I left home when I was about 17 dropped out of high school and convinced Lamar to do the same lol,” he said in answer to a query, referring to a member of his XO crew. “We grabbed our mattresses from our parents threw it in our friends shitty van and left one weekend and never came back home. It was gonna be the title of HOB [House of Balloons]. I hated my name at the time though so I tried it as a stage name. It sounded cool. I took out the “e” because there was already a Canadian band named the weekend (copyright issues),” he told MTV.

The Weeknd is expected to perform at the Super Bowl 55 half time show between 8:00 pm and 8:30 pm.

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