By Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor In Variety’s cover story on The Weeknd published Wednesday, the artist speaks about the far-reaching influence of his 2011 debut mixtape “House of Balloons.” In that segment, Weeknd says, “I heard ‘Climax,’ that Usher song, and was like, ‘Holy f—, that’s a Weeknd song.’ It was very flattering, and I knew I was doing something right, but I also got angry.
But the older I got, I realized it’s a good thing.” Reps for Usher did not respond to Variety’s requests for comment — but the singer is apparently working to get his point across anyway, via his collaborator Eric Bellinger’s “ClimaxChallenge” on Instagram, and comments in a Beats 1 interview airing today.
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