Self-centered much?

It's no mystery that artists often give shout-outs to other artists in their music. For example, in Diddy's new song "Coming Home," he mentions songs by Dionne Warwick, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, and McFadden & Whitehead. Pretty average stuff, but some artists take shout-outs to the next level by giving themselves a shout-out. These artists encode themselves (the product) into their own products or embed themselves in other artist’s songs.

Lil Wayne and Jesse McCartney come to mind as two artists who self-promote in their music. In “3 Peat,” Lil Wayne drops the name of his album “Tha Carter 3,” and just in case you forgot it by the end of the song, he repeats “C3” multiple times. Jesse McCartney is a tad more subtle with his self-promotion. In his track “Body Language” he says, “That thing you got behind you is amazing.” Sexual harassment? Just another “flattering” lyric? Nope. This lyric was directly pulled from his earlier song “Leavin’.” This technique is truly effective because it makes consumers remember and desire the artist’s album or their previous work.

More effective still is for artists to promote themselves when featured in another artist’s work. My favorite example of this is Nelly’s rap in T.I’s “Get Loose” (yeah, I really like that song). In it, Nelly blatantly mentions upcoming single, “Flap Your Wings” by saying,” Let me see you drop it down and get that eagle on girl," lyrics directly taken from his upcoming song, right as he begins his rap.

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Like Nelly, Jesse, and Lil Wayne, many artists use these self-promotion techniques. By placing these references in songs that are bound to blow up, they are essentially doing the same thing Glee does for their products: they are creating advertising the consumer cannot avoid.