Destiny’s Child released “Say My Name” in 1999 as the third single from their second album Writings on the Wall. This album was their breakthrough success, and this song specifically represented a crucial moment in this band’s future. This song was recorded by the four original members of the band: Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, LeToya Luckett, and LaTavia Roberson. However when the video dropped, LeToya and LaTavia were conspicuously absent and replaced with two new girls: Michelle Williams (who remained in Destiny’s Child until their final album in 2004) and Farrah Franklin (who lasted five months). LeToya and LaTavia told MTV News that they didn’t know they had been dropped from the band until they saw the music video, though Beyoncé and Kelly denied this. Williams met the band while touring with R&B singer Monica, and was pursuing an interest in criminal justice when she got called in to shoot the “Say My Name” video. She told Huffington Post that the “Say My Name” video shoot happened at a pivotal point in her life. Before I joined Destiny’s Child, I was supposed to see an autopsy. My uncle called the county coroner and arranged for me to shadow her. But I couldn’t make it because on the day of, I was shooting the ‘Say My Name’ video… So it was like, what do you want to do with life: ‘Say My Name’ or autopsy? This song was Destiny’s Child’s first collaboration with the esteemed R&B producer Darkchild Rodney Jerkins. He produced this song and wrote it alongside his brother Fred Jerkins III and his frequent collaborator LaShawn Daniels. Beyoncé remembered not liking his first attempt at the track. She told the Guardian: I don’t think he liked it either. There was just too much stuff going on it. It just sounded like this jungle…I don’t even know to this day how we wrote that song over that track. My dad came in to the studio and said, ‘Rodney’s done a new mix of that song that you hate—you have to listen to it.’..He had turned it into an amazing, timeless R&B record. It was one of the best songs we ever had, one of the best he’s ever produced. Fred Jerkins told Billboard that the girls liked the first version, just not as much as they liked the second version. The song was a major boost for Darkchild’s career; he ended up working with more Destiny’s Child frequently throughout their career, as well as produced songs for Michael Jackson, Toni Braxton, and Whitney Houston. Kelly Rowland told Pop Justice that this song is her favorite Destiny’s Child track. It was so much fun to record and we crossed over with that song into a whole new world and it was amazing for us. Our audience got bigger.