On Monday, the Instagram and Twitter accounts dedicated to pop star The Weeknd got a new name: Abel Makkonen Tesfaye. The update to the musician’s given name is in keeping with Tesfaye’s recent interviews, in which he’s discussed leaving his pop persona behind. “I’m getting ready to close the Weeknd chapter,” Tesfaye told W Magazine last week in an interview about The Idol, his upcoming HBO series. “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.”
