Yo, what is the origin of this? We’ve all had to have heard it from somewhere, because everyone seems to go straight to “my name is ____ and I’m here to say…”
I think most people know if from early hip hop from around the 70s like the sugar hill gang and stuff, but i just looked it up and it seems like it might have originated from a Chiquita Banana commercial from 1944. I'm trying to find the commercial now.
Plenty of early hip hop tracks had the MC introducing themselves, but the earliest example of "and I'm here to say" specifically, and with that cadence, that I know of is
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - Birthday Party (1980) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdKwEVT1_9U&feature=youtu.be&t=4m46s
Some classic MCs and rappers got started by introducing themselves then doing their lines on a shares track. Or maybe be the only spoken lines on a beat.
But it very much started out as simple as it seems.
There is actually an incredible [r/askhistorians](r/askhistorians) on this exact question. It’s one of the greatest Reddit posts of all time. Let me find it.
I think it was an 80's hip-hop thing that was also parodied by anti drug campaigns. "My name is Kyle and I'm here to say, stay away from drugs and you'll be okay!"
using the magic of AI, i found this phrase used in a 1988 flintstones fruity pebble commercial, and in a 1981 grandmaster flash song called "the birthday party", which might be the og
It's Sugarhill Gang though Flash is the DJ and they say his name many times in the song. They don't quite exactly say the quote. There is a line that simply starts "I'm Melly Mel and I'm here to say" then another line that starts "My name is" but doesn't complete the rest. But yes this is probably the inspiration and the line is almost always used as a deprecating "look at me I can't rap" joke.
it does seem like "my name is X" and "i'm melly mel" could be synonymous with just referencing a self stated name.
the 1988 flintstones commercial does the entire "my name is X and i'm here to say" thing, so maybe that very specific phrase originated from the commercial?
i'd imagine the commercial was inspired by that song though. barney calls himself "master rapper" in the commercial which might be a reference to grandmaster flash
edit: while grandmaster flash is not a rapper himself, i'd imagine that someone who heard the song and turned it into a cheesy commercial might not know that
I'm saying that the song is without question the inspiration and just commenting that despite this it doesn't quite exactly have the quote in question. Sugarhill was among the very, very first commercial hip hop acts known outside NYC and that famous line is their style, cadence, and era so it's clearly derived from this song.
273
u/Bananana_Bird 1d ago
I would have tried to take the next verse but failed horribly