Abel Tesfaye has long been planning a funeral for his alter ego, The Weeknd. Having suggested his next record might be his last using that moniker, recent teasers for his new music seem to have kicked off the ceremony. The latest, captioned “Unprepared certainty…”, is a haunting meditation on The Weeknd’s time as a pop star. “All I have is my legacy/I’ve been losing my memory,” he sings. “No afterlife, no other side/I’m all alone when it fades to black.”It’s unclear if the three-plus minute track is a full song unto itself or just a teaser for what’s to come. It’s accompanied by an eerie animated video of a young boy traveling through a dilapidated mansion, littered with remnants of The Weeknd’s career. There are references to his very first project as The Weeknd (House Of Balloons) and the different “eras” he’s been through in the years since. “Unprepared certainty…” follows the release of another animated teaser last month. The artist posted that one to social media alongside the Nietzsche quote, “When you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” That one featured similarly eerie visuals, with a distressed child protagonist trying to escape a gang of hooded figures that may or may not all be The Weeknd himself. Evan Larsen is credited as the director of both videos. Back in 2023—while he was promoting his ill-fated TV series The Idol—Tesfaye began preparing fans for the end of this chapter. “I’m going through a cathartic path right now. It’s getting to a place and a time where I’m getting ready to close the Weeknd chapter. I’ll still make music, maybe as Abel, maybe as The Weeknd. But I still want to kill The Weeknd. And I will. Eventually. I’m definitely trying to shed that skin and be reborn,” he told W Magazine. “The album I’m working on now is probably my last hurrah as The Weeknd. This is something that I have to do. As The Weeknd, I’ve said everything I can say.”
