C minor · Camelot 5A · 138 BPM
Say My Name
by Destiny's Child
- 138
- BPM
- C minor
- Key
- 5A
- Camelot
- 72
- Danceability
- 28
- Acousticness
Rodney Jerkins reworked the track twice before Destiny's Child agreed to record "Say My Name" for their second album, The Writing's on the Wall. The producer-songwriter, one of several hired for the project, had built an early demo inspired by 2-step garage music he heard in a London club. When the group wrote the song with him, Beyoncé Knowles was unhappy with the result, saying there was "too much stuff" on the track and that it sounded like a "jungle". During the album photo shoot, her father and manager Mathew Knowles came to the studio and told her that Jerkins had reworked the track she hated, adding that she would "just have to take a listen to it". When the new mix was played, the group liked it.
Columbia Records released the song as the album's third single on October 14, 1999, first in Japan with mixes of "Bug a Boo" as B-sides. It went on to become Destiny's Child's second number one in the United States and their first in Australia, reaching the top 10 in countries including the United Kingdom, France, and New Zealand. At the 2001 Grammy Awards it won Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and Best R&B Song.
The music video, directed by Joseph Kahn, introduced replacement members Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin after Luckett and Roberson were dismissed in January 2000, though the departed members' vocals remain on the recording. Franklin and Williams contributed no vocals to the track.
Say My Name runs at 138 BPM, the tempo of techno, trance and big-room dance. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.74 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 435 ms. It is in C minor, Camelot 5A, which shares its notes with Eb major and mixes cleanly with F minor and G minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.