Say My Name

Rodney Jerkins produced it and wrote it with his brother Fred Jerkins III, LaShawn Daniels and the four members of the group. Jerkins said his demo was inspired by the 2-step garage he heard in a London club. Daniels, who had the idea for the lyric, said the song grew out of a phone call in his own relationship, in which the other person kept asking him to say her name. The narrator calls her lover, suspects him of cheating and asks him to say her name.

Beyoncé disliked the first mix, saying there was too much stuff on it and that it sounded like a jungle, and the song almost went unused. Mathew Knowles told her Jerkins had reworked the track she hated, and when the group heard the new version they liked it. Her verdict later was that it had become an amazing, timeless R&B record. Staccato verses leap into double-time. The song went from 83 on the Hot 100 to number one in its thirteenth week and held it for three weeks. In Britain it reached number three, and in Australia number one. At the 2001 Grammys it won Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and Best R&B Song. Joseph Kahn's video, set in color-coded rooms, won the 2000 MTV Video Music Award for Best R&B Video and was echoed in Kehlani's Distraction and Tove Styrke's Say My Name. Rolling Stone placed the song at number 285 on its 2021 list of the 500 greatest songs, and Pitchfork ranked it number eight among the 250 best songs of the 1990s. Tom Breihan of Stereogum wrote that it sounded like the future in 2000 and still does.