True Damage is back. Know My Name, the official anthem of the 2026 League of Legends World Championship, has been streaming in Singapore since 9 October. It’s the first time one of Riot Games’ virtual artists has fronted a Worlds anthem, and the band performs it live at the Opening Ceremony on 14 November at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Watching from Singapore? Riot hasn’t announced the ceremony start time, ticket sale details or livestream channels yet, so there’s no confirmed SGT viewing time to plan around. If you’re planning a late-night watch party, keep an eye on the official League of Legends channels.
At a glance
🗓️ Date: Saturday, 14 November 2026
📍 Location: Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York
🎤 Performing: True Damage, Know My Name, at the Worlds 2026 Opening Ceremony, presented by Mastercard
🇸🇬 In Singapore: The track has been streaming here since 9 October. Ceremony start time, tickets, livestream channels and Singapore skin prices have not been released yet.
🎧 Listen: Out now on all major streaming platforms, with the official music video on the League of Legends YouTube channel
🗡️ In-game: True Damage Know My Name Yasuo skin, with chromas and bundles. Check the in-game store for pricing.
If you were deep in League of Legends in 2019, you remember GIANTS, the swaggering hip-hop debut that turned five in-game champions into a crew you wanted to follow on Instagram. According to Riot, that track has passed 230 million streams across all platforms. The sequel has taken seven years, and it arrives during one of the busiest months on the esports calendar.
Who Are True Damage, Anyway?
True Damage is a virtual hip-hop collective made by Riot Games Music, the music arm of the studio behind League of Legends. The “members” are five champions from the game, and each has a musical role:
- Akali and Ekko rap.
- Qiyana sings and raps.
- Senna sings.
- Yasuo is the DJ and producer.
Real artists supply the voices. The 2026 line-up:
- SOYEON of i-dle, the K-pop group many fans still know as (G)I-DLE, returns as Akali.
- GRAMMY winner Coco Jones voices Senna.
- GRAMMY-nominated Chicago rapper Vic Mensa voices Ekko.
- Mexican Latin pop singer Sofía Reyes voices Qiyana.
That’s a near-total recast. Only SOYEON returns from the GIANTS era, when Becky G voiced Qiyana, Keke Palmer took Senna, Thutmose rapped as Ekko and Duckwrth handled Yasuo. Riot hasn’t explained the changes, so longtime fans will be listening for whether the new cast feels like the same band or a cover act wearing the same skins.
Why “First” Matters Here
The “first virtual artist” claim needs a bit of precision, because True Damage and its sister group K/DA have played Worlds before. K/DA performed POP/STARS at the 2018 event, and True Damage debuted GIANTS at the 2019 final in Paris. Both were standalone releases performed at the ceremony. The official anthems in those years were RISE and Phoenix.
So the claim is narrower than it sounds. Know My Name is the 13th official Worlds anthem, counting from Imagine Dragons’ Warriors in 2014, and the first of those performed by a Riot virtual band. Recent editions went to big human names: NewJeans sang GODS in 2023, Linkin Park delivered Heavy Is the Crown in 2024, and Chinese superstar G.E.M. headlined Sacrifice in 2025.
Handing the slot to cartoon champions is a confident move. Riot’s Global Head of Music, Maria Egan, framed it around the host city. “Much like our host city, True Damage has always been about bringing together distinct voices, styles, and cultures to create something unique and bigger than the sum of its parts,” she said in the 29 September 2026 release. She added that for dedicated fans, “the League Champs in our virtual bands are the superstars they most want to see on the Worlds stage.”
She has a point. Plenty of players have spent more hours with Akali than with any pop star, so the anthem arrives with a familiarity no guest headliner can buy.
What Does It Sound Like?
It sounds like New York. The track leans on drill, the hard, sliding hip-hop style closely tied to the city’s streets, which suits a Worlds final that ends in Brooklyn. NME called it a “New York drill-inspired banger” and ranked it alongside fan favourites Heavy Is the Crown and Legends Never Die, which is flattering company to keep.
Sofía Reyes said the session “brought out a fiery side of me that you don’t usually hear in my music.” She singled out hearing “so many different languages come together in one song.” Vic Mensa talked about stepping into Ekko’s story for his verse. In an interview with The FADER, he described the period after GIANTS as overwhelming. Requests for ads, tours and livestreams piled up while he was trying to write, and he compared the feeling to “drowning”.
The production is led by Sebastien Najand, who co-wrote the track with a team that includes Vic Mensa and Drew Love of The Daydreamers. The music video centres on Faker, the T1 player, his career and T1’s three-peat.
Are Players Feeling It?
It’s early. At least one fan replying to League of Legends’ official post on X scored it 5/10 and called it “a generic Worlds anthem”, saying they expected more from a True Damage comeback.
That reaction deserves a hearing, because GIANTS set a high bar for personality. Our take: the drill pivot is the right call for a New York final. A Worlds anthem has to work as hype music in an arena, and this one is built for that. Whether it earns GIANTS-level replay value will depend on the live show, where virtual performers and real stage production have to sell the illusion together.
Skins, Streams and the Big Night
There’s an in-game tie-in too. Riot’s Worlds 2026 materials list a True Damage Know My Name Yasuo skin, sold with individual chromas plus border-set and chroma bundles. Prices haven’t been listed for Singapore, so check the in-game store before you spend your Riot Points.
Worlds began on 15 October with the Play-In Stage in Los Angeles. The tournament moves across the United States before the final in New York. Ticket sale details, ceremony start times and livestream channels for the Opening Ceremony are still to come.
Seven years is a long wait. True Damage didn’t settle for a GIANTS rerun. It came back with a new city, a new sound and three new voices, and that took more nerve. Give it a few loops before the Opening Ceremony so you know every bar when Akali hits the Brooklyn stage, and find Know My Name on your streaming platform of choice!
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