![the weeknd starboy the weeknd starboy](https://static.hiphopdx.com/2018/09/The-Weeknd_09-18-2018-640x480.jpg)
The following year, he met Jeremy Rose, a producer who had an idea for a dark contemporary R&B musical project. In August 2009, Tesfaye began anonymously releasing music to YouTube. Main articles: House of Balloons, Thursday (album), and Echoes of Silence In 2007, he dropped out of school and moved to Parkdale, Toronto. He attended West Hill Collegiate Institute and Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute. He said that he often shoplifted to supplement his drug use. Tesfaye has described his teenage years as being like the film " Kids without the AIDS." He stated he began smoking marijuana at age eleven, and later used ecstasy, oxycodone, Xanax, cocaine, psilocybin, and ketamine. He wasn't abusive, he wasn't an alcoholic, he wasn't an asshole.
![the weeknd starboy the weeknd starboy](https://static.billboard.com/files/media/the-weeknd-performance-june-2017-a-billboard-1548-compressed.jpg)
I don't even know where he lived - I'd see him for, like, a night. He said of his father, "I saw him vaguely when I was six, and then again when I was 11 or 12, and he had a new family and kids. He attended services at the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. While living with his grandmother, he learned Amharic, which he also spoke with his mother. He is an only child and was raised by his grandmother and mother after his parents separated.
![the weeknd starboy the weeknd starboy](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81A6ZiylHPL._AC_UL1500_.jpg)