Vampire Weekend is an American indie rock band from New York City, that formed in 2006 and signed to XL Recordings. The band has four members: Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Chris Tomson, and Chris Baio. The band released its first album Vampire Weekend in 2008, which produced the singles "Mansard Roof", "A-Punk", "Oxford Comma" and "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa". The band's most recent album, Contra, was released in 2010.

Members of the band met while in Columbia University, beginning with a "serious" rap collaboration between Koenig and Tomson. They bonded over a shared love of punk and African music, and in fact Koenig had gone on tour with The Dirty Projectors during a period of experimentation with African music, inspiring the band to incorporate world sounds into their earliest work. They chose the name Vampire Weekend from the title of a short film project by Koenig. Koenig believes that the vampire imagery of their band name helped spread their work across the internet, attracting people who might otherwise never have listened to their music. The band began playing shows around Columbia, starting with a battle of the bands at Lerner Hall. After graduating from college, the band self-produced their debut album while simultaneously working full time jobs, Tomson as a music archivist and Koenig as a middle school English teacher.