Abel Tesfaye, known to many by his stage name “The Weeknd”, is one of the most popular pop artists of all time.
His career has been extremely successful, with record breaking streaming numbers from several of his hit songs, including “Die For You” with over 3 billion streams, “Starboy” with 4.2 billion streams, and his most popular song of his career so far, “Blinding Lights”, which has received 5.1 billion streams since its release in 2020. These numbers are record shattering, so much so that The Weeknd has earned the number one spot on Spotify for monthly listeners, at over 122 million. And yet when it comes to academy recognition, The Weeknd somehow falls short of nominations year after year. How can someone so successful, with music that reaches billions globally, be continuously snubbed during award season? I have decided to go in depth into the Grammy’s ongoing shut-out of The Weeknd, as this ongoing disappointment is baffling to fans, and outright disrespectful to The Weeknd’s career.
The Snubbing Begins.
The feud between The Weeknd and The Grammy’s began in 2021, when Abel received zero nominations for his album “After Hours” especially for one of the album’s hits “Blinding Lights”, which is arguably one of the most successful songs streamed on Spotify of all time. This blatant disregard of his album came as a huge surprise to his fanbase, as he had recently performed at the 2021 Superbowl, where he showcased the hit album, his past discography, and “Blinding Lights” as his biggest hit. Abel took to X (formerly known as Twitter) and stated in a now deleted tweet, that “The Grammy’s remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans, and the industry transparency…” After lots of back and forth about the situation between The Weeknd and the Recording Academy CEO Harvery Mason Jr., Abel expressed that he would no longer submit his music to the Grammys for consideration. Following Abel’s boycott of the annual award ceremony, The Grammy’s faced increased scrutiny into their selection process, shining a light on the academy’s “secret selection” committee, which was already facing criticism for their alleged history of exclusivity and bias towards Black artists. While this scrutiny led to the Grammy’s abolishing these committees, and opening voting for awards to all members of the academy, The Weeknd continued to withhold his music for award consideration.
The Weeknd’s Touring Success.
Over the past three years, from 2022 through 2025, The Weeknd has been touring multiple albums, calling the stadium shows “The After Hours Till Dawn Tour”. This tour that has evolved from showcasing both his albums “Dawn FM” and “After Hours”, to expanding to include his most recent album, “Hurry Up Tomorrow”, and it has grossed over $1 billion dollars since 2022, making it the highest grossing tour by a male solo artist in the history of the music industry. This level of success has only ever been seen by other legendary artists, including Taylor Swift with her “Eras Tour”, and Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour. I ended up being extremely fortunate, and was able to attend both nights of The Weeknd’s performances in Philadelphia this July. And I can tell from personal experience that there were no “bad” seats in the stadium. From incredible vocals, to high quality pyrotechnics, and even firework shows during multiple songs, these two concerts were the best I have ever been to in my life.
When an artist puts on these amazing quality concerts, selling out stadiums all around the world, and is continuously supported by a fanbase of hundreds of millions, how can they not receive recognition from the highest level? The Weeknd has proved time and time again that his music reaches audiences everywhere, with his lyrics speaking to fans, and his instrumentals souring his records to number one on the charts. Therefore his repeated exclusion from academy nominations is baffling.
the snubbing returns.
In February of 2025, The Weeknd forgave The Recording Academy at the 67th annual Grammy awards, performing his hit songs “Cry For Me” and “Timeless” with rapper Playboi Carti. Before his performance, the CEO of the academy Harvey Mason Jr. welcomed Abel to the stage with a speech, which referred back to The Weeknd’s past comments of how the Grammy’s were “corrupt”, and what the academy has done to increase diversity, youth, and overall voting participation during award season. Harvey stated in his speech, “But you know what, criticism is ok. I heard him. I felt his conviction” in response to the increased scrutiny of the academy following The Weeknd’s boycott.
After Harvey’s speech, and The Weeknd’s performance, it seemed like any bad blood between the two had been mended, giving hope to fans that The Weeknd would submit his music for consideration during the next award season. And that is exactly what he did. On January 31st 2025, The Weeknd released his latest album “Hurry Up Tomorrow” which he expressed would be the last album he released under his stage name before releasing music under his given name, Abel Tesfaye. The album debuted extraordinarily well, landing at the number one spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and earning 490,500 album units, which has made it The Weeknd’s highest debuting album of his career. This album marks the fifth studio album of The Weeknd’s to land number one on the charts, with hit songs including “Cry For Me” “Timeless” and “Sao Paulo” which garnered over 2.3 billion streams combined. He also collaborated with several known artists throughout the album, including Lana Del Ray, Playboi Carti, and Anitta, which added versatility to his work that hasn’t been seen as frequently in his previous albums. With this much success, one would think that it would be met with academy recognition. However, that was again not the case with Abel’s latest hit album. Although he submitted his work for several awards including “Album of the Year” “Best Pop Vocal Album” “Record of the Year” “Best Pop Duo” and several others, The Grammy’s once again snubbed The Weeknd of receiving a single nomination for the 2026 awards.
The second shutout of The Weeknd for grammy consideration was met by outrage and disappointment by fans, especially as this was the last release he would be making under the stage name. In my opinion, the widespread outrage over his snub is rightfully justified, with one fan even stating “This isn’t a snub, it’s a slap in the face to artistry, to what Abel built…” As of now, The Weeknd has not publicly responded to his repeated exclusion from receiving Grammy nominations, although many fans, myself included, are baffled and in need of answers as to why so many successful artists are not receiving the recognition they deserve.