When The Weeknd set his release date for After Hours, he couldn’t have imagined the viral pandemic the world would soon be facing.
Despite the looming uncertainty, however, he never thought about pushing back the project’s release—even though his team and label wanted him to. “I cut that discussion off right away,” The Weeknd told Variety in a recent cover story. “Fans had been waiting for the album, and I felt like I had to deliver it.
The commercial success is a blessing, especially because the odds were against me: [Music] streaming is down 10 percent, stores are closed, people can’t go to concerts, but I didn’t care.