Download Remember The Name By Fort Minor

[Avenall Trejo]

OnFort Minor's website in September 2005, Mike had several different clips of music playing for fans. At first, it was a clip of "Remember The Name" with the swirling intro and repeating string parts. This instrumental was released as the beginning and background parts on the Sampler Mixtape song "Intro". "Intro" was then used as the live intro to Fort Minor's setlist as "Remember The Name" opened all of the shows. Later, the clip of "Remember The Name" was upgraded to include the synth, Mike yelling "you ready? let's go!", and the beat of the song on repeat, before the song was officially released. This was a 50 second clip. The second clip updated at that time was an instrumental that later turned out to be "Introduction" on The Rising Tied, coming in at 35 seconds. These were the first clips of Fort Minor music that fans heard from Mike.

While working on the album, Mike made a self-imposed rule that he would write and play every note of music, making exceptions only to add strings, choir and some percussion parts. "That snare [sound] is like 12 tracks of sticks and clapping and snapping and tambourine [combined into one]. It probably took me a half hour just to make it. I'm lucky because I'm able to play a lot of different instruments. In the case of somebody like Kanye, he works a lot with samples. I could've gone that route too, but I figure if there's something you can do that is, like, your gift, just focus on [that]. Besides the fact that samples can be expensive!"

On the 15th anniversary of the album, Mike was asked about his favorite memory making the album. He said, "Wow my favorite memory. I had a bunch of different things. I remember coming up with the beat for Remember The Name and being like, "Ok, everything revolves around this, the record revolves around this. This is what I'm shooting for."[6]

Mike's line "it's not about the salary, it's all about reality, and making some noise" is a reference to both "My Philisophy" by Boogie Down Productions, a group Mike grew up as a fan of, and "Gangsta Gangsta" by N.W.A, both of whom have the line "it's not about the salary, it's all about reality."

About his own second verse, "One of my goals on "The Rising Tied" was to write every note, play every instrument, write every word. There were only a few exceptions. I wrote all the music, all my raps, and anything anyone else sang (the choruses on all the songs). I also mixed the album. Exceptions: The guest rappers wrote their own verses, Eric Bobo played percussion on "Believe Me," Joe Hahn scratched on "Slip Out The Back," and I hired some string players and a choral group for various things."

A thread was made on LP Association the same day where fans flocked to hear the song.[9] The song spread so quickly through the Linkin Park community that various fansites, including LP Association and LPFuse, received takedown notices from Warner Bros. However, Mike quickly got on this case to help the fansites and get the notices rescinded so the song could be shared, as he was the one that leaked the song.[10]

At the end of the first two Fort Minor shows at Pukkelpop and Highlands 2005, Mike and Styles of Beyond threw CDs into the crowd. Surprisingly, no rips of the CDs found their way online those two days (August 18 and 19), so Mike likely leaked "Remember the Name" to Rap Basement late in the day on August 19 to get it out right away to fans. To date, the CDs have never surfaced so it is unknown if they are a copy of the Sampler Mixtape or not, but it's more likely it was a blank CDR with "Remember the Name" on it.

During the January 11, 2021 Twitch stream he was asked about the "vegetable version" of the track and he said, "Vegetable version? I did a vegetable version? I don't even know that I did a vegetable version. I don't remember this. Oh I see what you're saying, the Peter Rabbit version! We've gotta get clear on the actual video, on the actual clip in question here. Can you imagine you're watching Peter Rabbit and right in the middle of it, out of nowhere, absolutely out of nowhere in this CGI children's film? Dude come on. Just hold on, let me point out one part of the lyrics. 'It's not the salary, it's all about the celery, and maybe some radishes, maybe some cabbages?!' That happened, that is a thing that happened, Peter Rabbit. They called me and they said, 'We want to use your song in our movie' and I'm like, 'How?' As usual, every time anybody's like, 'We want to use your music in a movie', I'm like, 'Maybe...? How?"'And they originally were like, 'Oh, we're going to have this fight scene where we're going to use it.' And I was like, 'That doesn't sound like something I want to do. It sounds like a very cute movie, but I don't know if that sounds like my thing.' And then I started talking with the director and they were like, 'We want to change the words though. Here's the scene.' And I was like, 'Oh, it's funny, it's a funny scene, got it.' So they rewrote the song for the movie, they rewrote that verse, rather, and sent it to me... and it wasn't awesome. The performance was really weird. Then I was like, 'Tell you what, I'll coach you on this, I'll tell you how to make it better, fix it.' Make it just a little more authentic to the song. Like, the pattern was all off, they had a person who doesn't rap do the thing and he missed the pattern of the thing. And then I was like, 'You know, you really have to have someone who can rap, who is also funny, do it.' And I suggested my friend Jensen who is the best, he's super super funny and he's a hardcore student of hip hop. So that's how that all came together, and then me and Jensen. It was a very easy thing to do, but every time I see it, it's the funniest thing ever. It's dumb but the birds are the ones rapping and the rabbits shoot the birds at the end. The thing is, I didn't initiate that and it wasn't like a hard thing to do. By the way for the record, they asked 'Would you do the voice?' and I was like 'No way! I would love to do a voice for a character but I don't want to just show up and rap a scene.' I couldn't imagine doing the 'cabbages, radishes' myself, it needed someone funnier, a funnier voice. If you actually ask me to do the voice of one of the rabbits, I would do it. But nobody is asking. Nobody asked! I don't know what's up!"

A remix titled "Remember The Name (Funkadelic Remix)" was created by Mike Shinoda for inclusion in the We Major mixtape. The remix is basically the "Remember The Name" acapella being played over a sample of "Music For My Mother" by Funkadelic.

The multitracks from the recording sessions of "Remember The Name" were released to ccMixter under a Creative Commons license for a remix contest in 2006. It included both clean and dirty acapella versions. The winners of the remix contest were Marc Kaschke and Norman Mauer with their "Remember The Name (Kaschke & Mauer Remix)" track. The producers were awarded a new Technics SL-1200MK5 turntable, courtesy of Warner Bros. Records and Machine Shop Recordings.[14] They explained their process, "we have used samples from different sources for this song and layered them to get this soundthe fx are all done by playing old arcade games in realtime. we just edited the samples to keep them in timewe used logic and some internal plugins... thats itfor the vocals: ssl listen mic compressor, drums and beatbox are sampled with battery from native instruments. just playing arround with the compression...nice experience to get a professional rap-playback and program a beat for it."[15]

DJ Cheapshot of Styles Of Beyond remixed "Remember The Name" and uploaded it to his SoundCloud page on July 18, 2011. The remix was eventually released on his mixtape Cheapshot's Poo Poo Platter in 2012. The track was preceded by a voicemail by Mike Shinoda.

On October 19, 2005, Fort Minor announced that the music video for "Remember The Name" would be released the following day on October 20 as a Fort Minor MySpace exclusive. The Fort Minor newsletter said, "What's up! Thanks for adding us ... I'm really excited for you to hear the Fort Minor album (soon--Nov. 22). In the meantime, we're going to hit you with a special look at a video for "Remember The Name"!! It will be on the Fort Minor MySpace page this Thursday. Exclusive!! ---> myspace.com/fortminor

Chester, Brad, and Rob have a cameo in the video. Ryu on the Fort Minor forums commented and said, "everyone was there except joe and and phoenix i believe. wait maybe they were there, i was really drunk sorry."[17]

In an LPU chat on August 22, 2006, Mike said, "warner bros. is heading the charge on the REMEMBER THE NAME single...we think that it's a nice way to go out on this album--the song has been such a cult hit in the sportsworld, and people all over have requested it for other things. we're hoping to do a new video for it--the concept for it is really cool, i think. i hope that works out."[19]

In October 2006, Mike said, "All those kids who put up crazy stuff that they've done in sports -- extreme sports, basketball, kung fu -- we're going to make a Fort Minor 'Remember the Name' video out of your clips. I love going on YouTube and seeing all the crazy shit that people do. That's what really inspired me to want to do this."[20]

The Fort Minor website said, "Calling all athletes, sports fans, and talented people! What will make the world REMEMBER YOUR NAME? Enter the Fort Minor / Fuse "Highlight Reel" Video contest. If you've got a huge dunk, grand slam, skate trick, martial arts knockout or other spectacular sports / action moment caught on tape, submit it. The winners will all be included in a Fort Minor video for the song "Remember The Name." Simply host your video online, and submit the direct URL of where your video is located. The deadline to submit your video is Sunday, November 5th at 11:59pm PST. Mike Shinoda will select his favorites from all finalist video clips! The winning video clips will be edited into the final Fort Minor / Fuse Remember The Name "Highlight Reel" Video, and the NAMES OF THE ATHLETES WILL APPEAR ON THE SCREEN! Fuse.tv will stream the final "Highlight Reel" of winning video clips on Monday, November 20th. The "Highlight Reel" Video will also be available at Fortminor.com including a list of the contest winners' names following the premiere."[21]

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