The Weeknd had a surprise waiting for Japan.
Kicking off the Asian leg of his After Hours Til Dawn tour at Belluna Dome on September 19, the superstar used opening night to unveil a brand-new, unreleased song.
Currently dubbed “Tokyo”, the track features Japanese singer Yoko Takahashi and samples her iconic 1995 song “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis”, the opening theme from the famous anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion.
It was a distinctly Japanese unveiling for the new material, bringing together music, anime and gaming in one performance. Takahashi first delivered “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis” before Tesfaye joined her for the unreleased track, while visuals from NieR creator Yoko Taro played across the stage. Tesfaye later shared the performance online with the credit: “Presented by YOKO TARO. Featuring “YOKO TAKAHASHI”
The song has yet to receive an official release date, but its debut arrives at a particularly pivotal point in Tesfaye’s career.
“Tokyo” also marks the second unreleased track Tesfaye has unveiled on the After Hours Til Dawn tour, following “Rio,” his collaboration with Anitta, which debuted during his April 26 show in Rio de Janeiro.
Despite spending much of the Hurry Up Tomorrow era teasing the end of The Weeknd persona, Tesfaye now appears to be looking firmly towards what comes next.
In GQ Hong Kong’s new cover feature, Tesfaye elaborated on his current period as a kind of creative reset rather than retirement. “If I create under my own name one day,” he told GQ, “it won’t be about leaving anything behind. It’ll just be another evolution.”
That revolution is already beginning to take shape. Tesfaye further revealed that he has been revisiting Kiss Land, his 2013 debut studio album, and is currently working on a remaster. He said about his record, "it's the one project I never felt I executed exactly the way I envisioned” and that he’s now returning to it with the intention of bringing that original vision closer to life.
Kiss Land marked a significant shift from the unfiltered intimacy of his early mixtapes into a darker, more cinematic world. One that would eventually foreshadow the conceptual universes he built throughout the following decade.
Now, that past is colliding with whatever comes next, the Asian leg of the tour continues through Jakarta, Singapore, Seoul, Bangkok and Hong Kong before wrapping up in Kuala Lumpur on Nov. 4. The tour has already become the highest-grossing solo male tour in history, while Tesfaye continues to hint at what comes after.
