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A Singer Namedrop is when an artist or a band interweaves their name into the lyrics of one of their songs. Dropping one's name is a way to make listeners remember who sang the song. This can take a form of either simply saying the name (regardless of context), indicating that the song is about him or her, or introducing him or herself, usually in the hook.
Singer namedrops are a common element of rap songs, with some rappers using their name as a way of saying "I'm goin' in!" With some rappers, like 2 Chainz, their name is practically a catchphrase.
Compare Creator Cameo and Title Drop. Virtually present in a Boastful Rap. Sometimes evokes Third-Person Person.
Examples:
Music
- Almost every rap song ever.
- Green Day had a song called "Green Day" on their debut album.
- This was when their name was "Sweet Children". They got the name "Green Day" from the song.
- For one that was the name's band to begin with, "Iron Maiden", which the band uses to finish the regular set.
- "Welllll we were just another band out of Boston" - from "Rock N' Roll Band"
- Lady Gaga uses the word "gaga" often in her songs, like "Just Dance", "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)", "Bad Romance", "Monster", and "Judas". An example from "Bad Romance":
Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!/Roma-roma-mamaa!
'Ga-ga''-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance.
- In the song "Government Hooker:
Gaga, ga oh-ah
Gaga, ga oh-oh-oh
Io ritorne, io ritorne.
Io ritorne, io ritorne.
- There are many, many Vocaloid covers of Lady Gaga songs. Naturally, any Singer Namedrop instances tend to change from 'Gaga' to the name of the Vocaloid (e.g.: 'Luka')
- In Rihanna's "Umbrella" featuring Jay Z:
Jay, Rain Man is back with little Ms. Sunshine
Rihanna where you at?
- Nicki Minaj uses the nickname "RiRi" in her feature verse in "Raining Men". This might be a Production Throwback to the fact Nicki made a demo intended for Rihanna called "Saxon", with the line "it's RiRi.
- Roxette does this in "Dance Away" and "Joyride".
- The mention of "Denny Mclaren" in Don Mclean's cover version of "The Mountains of Mourne" is this, with a bit of stretching to fit the song's metre; in the original lyrics, it's "Peter O'Loughlin".
- Metallica and Megadeth each have one. Metallica's in 'Whiplash'
We'll never stop
We'll never quit
Cos we're Metallica
- Megadeth's is in 'Rattlehead': "Thrashing to Megadeth".
- The Low Millions take this up a notch with their song "Low Millions".
- Freddie Mercury does it in Queen song "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" ("Ready, Freddie") and in his solo song "Mr. Bad Guy". All four Queen members are mentioned in "Invisible Man".
- Chaka Khan's hit "I Feel for You" included a backup rapper who repeated her name dozens of times.
- Jet - "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" inserted the band's name as a word in a sentence, emphasizing it while singing:
Big black boots
long brown hair
She's so sweet with her
Jet black stare!
- Counting Crows do this in A Murder of One:
Well, I dreamt I saw you walking
Up a hillside in the snow
Casting shadows on the winter sky
As you stood there, counting crows.
- In "Piano Man" by Billy Joel:
He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me."
As his smile ran away from his face...
- In "The Girl is Mine" duet with Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney, spoken lines include:
Paul: "Michael, we're not going to fight about this"
Michael: "Paul, I think I told you. I'm a lover not a fighter."
- A few They Might Be Giants examples: "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love" (whose title is a reference to the Mahavishnu Orchestra's "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love", so the "John" mentioned could also be the group's founder, John McLaughlin), "Welcome To The Jungle" (Name's the Same as the Guns N' Roses song, but completely different otherwise), and "They Got Lost" all namedrop members of the band. The band in its entirety is name dropped in "They Got Lost" and, naturally, "They Might Be Giants."
- From "When Will You Die":
This is Dan, and that's Dan
And there's Marty on the drums
To complete the band
And I'm John, and he is also John
And all of us are wondering
When you're gonna die
- "Mr. Xcitement" starts with John Flansburgh listing the band name and guest appearances on the song to some canned applause: "Let it be known... They Might Be Giants. Doughty. The Elegant Two. Mr. Xcitement". In turn, Mike Doughty mentions "Flansy" (a Fan Nickname for Flansburgh) in one of the verses of the same song.
- When they released "Can't Keep Johnny Down" Linnell and Flansburgh made a point in interviews of distancing themselves from the song's Jerkass Unreliable Narrator.
- Jessie J drops her name in the hook of "Do It Like A Dude", in the second verse of "Nobody's Perfect", and uses her first name in "Who's Laughing's Now".
- Britney Spears :The opening of "Gimme More" features: "It's Britney, bitch!"
- The rapper's repeated "Shakira, Shakira" in Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie". In fact, it's rare to find a song with Wyclef Jean in which he doesn't namedrop everyone involved.
- In "Hey Paula" by Paul and Paula, the singers address each other by name.
- Wang Chung, "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" ("Everybody Wang Chung tonight!")
- P!nk does this, in "Cuz I Can"
P.I.N.K. P.I.M.P.
I'm back again
I know y'all missed me
- Liz Phair, "Rock Me":
Your record collection don't exist
You don't even know who Liz Phair is.
- MTRKRFT's "Bounce" uses the group's name twice in the beginning.
- At the top of Ma Rainey's "Black Bottom,"
 an announcer-type says, "You've heard the rest, now I'm gonna show you the best. Ma Rainey's gonna show you her Black Bottom." Also, during the song itself Ma references herself by name a time or two.
- Jimi Hendrix, "Fire"
Move over Rover
And let Jimi take over
- Tony Sheridan with backup by The Beatles in his cover version of "Sweet Georgia Brown."
In Liverpool, she even dared
To criticise the Beatles' hair
With their whole fan club standing there
- Coheed and Cambria's "Elf Tower New Mexico" has the line "See, there's Coheed, and then Cambria...", and their old name "Shabutie" is said in the beginning of "Devil in Jersey City".
- Doctor Steel drops his name into his songs "Dr. Steel" and "The Dr. Steel Show".
- In Band Aid's "Do they Know It's Christmas?" Sting gets a line about "the bitter sting of tears."
- Wolfgang Gartners Get 'em ft Eve contains both "Wolfgang" and "E-v-e" (spelt out).
- One of Fall Out Boy's songs is called "I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me". The title is never actually sung though.
- Kant Kino 's song "We Are Kant Kino".
- My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult: Sung in "And This Is What The Devil Does" (a.k.a. "The Devil Does Drugs"). Yes, the entire name.
- "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang. Almost every verse ends with the rapper calling upon the next one by name to do his verse.
- The Chicago Bears "Superbowl Shuffle:"
We are the Bears Shufflin' Crew
Shufflin' on down, doin' it for you
- And each verse's first line is "My name is X" or "They call me Y" or similar as the individual players do their part.
- AC/DC subverts this trope: The chord sequence in "High Voltage" is A, C, D, C.
- Steely Dan's "Show Biz Kids" includes the line "They got the Steely Dan t-shirts".
- David Allan Coe's "You Never Even Called My By My Name:"
I've heard my name a few times in your phone book
And I've seen it on signs where I play
But the only time I know I'll hear "David Allan Coe"
Is when Jesus has his final Judgment Day
- Danni Leigh's "Somebody Oughta Do Something About That Girl"'s final verse ends with,
I hope no one ever pointed and said,
'Danni Leigh's the one wrecking his world,'
Sayin', 'Somebody oughta do something about that girl.'
- MIDI Mafia decided to do a Producer Name Drop when they produced a Justin Bieber song, leading many to wonder why one of his songs started with a creepy voice whispering mafia...
- In a somewhat similar vein, Ark Music Factory does a Studio Name Drop at the beginning of "Friday" by Rebecca Black.
- Folk singer Eric Bogle introduces himself in song at the start of his concerts. One version goes:
My name is Eric, some folk call me Eck,
If you're feeling formal, Mr Bogle will do,
But to my friends it's Eric, and I hope that means you.
- Jason. Derulo. Every song starts with his name, regardless of what the rest of the song is about.
- In GOOD Music (Kanye West's crew and record label)'s "The Morning", featured artist Raekwon does a particularly clever one where he namechecks 4 of the crew's members (all of whom rap on the song); Kanye West, 2 Chainz, Common and Pusha T, by saying:
I say ‘Ye with 2 Chainz on, we Common, let’s Push
- Escape Club's Wild Wild West has a line in which they say their name.
- Beastie Boys, "Fight For Your Right":
Your mom busted in and said, "What's that noise?"
Aw, mom you're just jealous, it's the Beastie Boys
- And the members will drop either their stage names or real names in songs fairly often - for instance in "No Sleep Til Brooklyn", Adam Yauch has the line "They call me Adam Yauch, but I'm MCA".
- Naughty By Nature, "Hip Hop Hooray":
I did your partner cause she's hot as a baker
Cause I'm Naughty By Nature, not cause I hate cha
- Bob Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody": "You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy"
- Big & Rich:
- "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" features the line "havin' ourselves a big and rich time."
- "Filthy Rich" changes from a normal Title Drop to "everybody's trying to get big and rich..." for the final lines. Also notable for containing the line "Me and my friends were talking that, old Freddie, Bill, and Sonny" (Big & Rich wrote the song with Bill McDavid, Freddy Powers, and Sonny Throckmorton).
- "Rollin' (The Ballad of Big & Rich)" has an interlude by Cowboy Troy that ends by declaring that he's "rolling with the brothers Big & Rich!" Also, this:
I'm a crazy son of a [ bad word] But I know I'm going to make it big and rich...
- To quote the New Edition song "Cool It Now":
Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky and Mike
If I love the girl, who cares who you like?
- "I am Nicki Minaj, I mack them dudes up..."
- Nicki has a little fun with Roman. She refers to herself as Roman in Madonna's "Gimme All Your Luvin'" and "Pound the Alarm", and talks to Roman as Martha in both "Roman's Revenge" and "Roman Holiday".
- She mentions her real name in "Starships":
- Nicki takes from political ads in "I Endorse These Strippers", proclaiming, "I'm Nicki Minaj, and I endorse these strippers!"
My name is Onika / you can call me Nicki * Drake does this pretty often, but he usually calls himself "Drizzy". One example is in "Successful" with the line 'Drizzy, oh yeah Trey I fucking feel you"
- Sort of done in Julia Nunes' "Fair Weather" (with an Album Title Drop in the same line): "Julia, just settle down". In context, the lyric is supposed to be someone else addressing her though.
- Tag Team's "Whoomp! There It Is" has some instances. The intro names the group and lists their members, and then there's "Tag Team, back again". The bowdlerized version adds one more by changing "make this motherfucking party hype" to "make this Tag Team party hype".
- Barenaked Ladies slip the word "barenaked" into "Be My Yoko Ono".
- Al Dexter's 1943 novelty hit "Pistol Packin' Mama" ends with the title character murdering a fella named Al Dexter.
- Diana Ross mentions fellow-Supremes Mary (Wilson) and Flo (Ballard) in "Back in My Arms Again".
- T. Rex's "Main Man" has Marc Bolan suddenly turn into a Third-Person Person in order to inform us that "Bolan likes to rock now, yes he does, yes he does".
- The Ramones' "The Return Of Jackie And Judy" mentions the duo of the title going to the Mud Club to see The Ramones themselves.
- And of course, when they covered Motörhead's Ramones tribute song "R.A.M.O.N.E.S.", it basically became a whole song full of this.
- Jason Derulo in about every song to date.
- From David Bowie's "Teenage Wildlife": "And you'll take me aside and say/David, what shall I do?"
- R.E.M. added one to their cover of Wire's "Strange". Michael Stipe sings "Michael's nervous and the lights are bright". In the original version it was "Joey's nervous", which didn't refer to anyone in Wire.
- Superdrag's "N.A. Kicker": "It would be a Superdrag if you should pass me by"
- M.C. Sar & The Real McCoy namedrop first part of their name in song "It's On You"... and the second part in its 1999 remake.
- Masterboy spell their own name in "Shake It Up and Dance", and in "Anybody (Movin' On)" there is:
Hip, hip, make a trip
Masterboy will make you flip
- Basic Element, "The Promise Man":
Attention! This is Basic Element. So get up!
- Digital Base Project in their song "Close To You".
- In "Break Your Heart" by Taio Cruz ft. Ludacris, they manage to put both artists in the lyrics.
So you can take this chance, in the end
Everybody's gonna be wondering how you deal
You might say this is Ludacris
But Taio Cruz tell her how you feel
- The Pixies' "Cactus" has a bridge where the band members yell "P! I! X! I! E! S!". When David Bowie covered it, he changed the bridge chant to "D! A! V! I! D!".
- BrokeNCYDE had "BrokeNCYDE will never die!" on not one but two songs from The Broken!: "Schizophrenia!!!" and the title track.
- The album version of Kenny Chesney and Uncle Kracker's "When the Sun Goes Down" has them ad-libbing the lines "Uncle Kenny's hotter when the sun goes down" and "She thinks Kracker's sexy when the sun goes down" (doubling as a reference to Chesney's "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy")
- Bomshel, "Bomshel Stomp". Notable for being the only song they retain from their first couple years, when Buffy Lawson was the lead vocalist instead of Kelly Shepard.
- Hank Williams, Jr. references his nickname "Bocephus" in a lot of his songs.
- Not the singer, but the guitarist, in Aerosmith's "F.I.N.E.*": "Even Joe Perry thinks I'm (ALRIGHT!)"
- Similarly, in live performances of "Hangman Jury", Steven Tyler replaces the original lyric of "I'd stand on the rock that Moses done stood" with "I'd stand on the rock Joe Perry done stood".
- KISS...well, how are they not gonna mention the word in song? But it does receive special emphasis in the second verse of "Calling Dr. Love".
- Nirvana, in "Paper Cuts".
- "Clarence Carter, Clarence Carter, Clarence Carter, wooooo SHIT Clarence Carter!" in "Strokin'".
- Pink Floyd: From "Have A Cigar" - "The band is just fantastic / That's exactly what we think / Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?"
- This is so prevalent in some genres of danceable Latin music (mostly dominican merengue, technomerengue, reggaeton and salsa) that it would be easier to name artists on those genres that don't do it. Technomerengue artists from the 1990's were the worst of the bunch: seriously, we should be reminded that we're listening to Ilegales, Sandy & Papo, or Proyecto Uno four times in a three minutes song?
- With the song "Dirty Love", Ke$ha and Iggy Pop introduce each other during the hook.
- A subtle (and possibly unintentional) example in "Miss Murder" by AFI
Hey, Miss Murder can I
Make beauty stay if I
Take my life
- On Under Construction, Missy Elliott opened damn near every song on there with some variation of the phrase "This is... a Missy Elliott... exclusive".
- Eisbrecher does this on the song "Eisbrecher". And as an added bonus, this song is on their self-titled album.
- Rammstein does this during the song "Wollt Ihr Das Bett in Flammen Sehen?" And also, obviously, on a track titled "Rammstein".
- The And One song "And One" is nothing but this with no other lyrics. But they slip their name into a few other songs as well, with more subtlety.
- In both Sir Mix-A-Lot and Jonathan Coulton's versions of Baby Got Back, they name themselves ("Mix-A-Lot's in Trouble" and "Johnny C's in trouble"). Amusingly averted in Glee, who stole Coulton's version wholesale, including his "Johnny C's in trouble", despite no one named Jonathan (or a derivation) being involved with the number.
Video Games
- The BEMANI unit VENUS has a song called "Wow Wow VENUS". The title, as well as just "VENUS", is frequently dropped throughout the song.
Wow Wow VENUS, bokutachi VENUS
Wow Wow VENUS, kimitachi VENUS
Wow Wow VENUS, hitori ja JESUS
Wow Wow VENUS, futari de VENUS
Web Original
- Parodied in Homestar Runner with the song Rap Song.
Tenerence Love : My name is Tenerence Love, plus my name is Tenerence Love, divided by my name is Tenerence Love, equals my name is Tene-ee-yeeeh-rence Looove, remainder threeee!
Western Animation
- On The Simpsons when Bart joins a Boy Band named Party Posse, their first song goes:
We're Party Posse, we rule the earth
The Greatest band since music's birth
- Arthur, "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll." After Francine starts a rock band called U Stink, Arthur, George, and Buster start a band called "We Stink". The only verse of their only song that we hear is:
Our name's We Stink
We like to play Rock and Roll
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