Worlds 2026 Anthem: True Damage Return With Know My Name
Riot announced on 29 September that True Damage performs the Worlds 2026 anthem, Know My Name. It is the 13th Worlds anthem and the first carried by a Riot virtual artist.
The Worlds 2026 anthem is "Know My Name", and True Damage performs it. Riot announced on 29 September that its virtual hip-hop collective takes the song, which makes this a first: no Riot virtual artist has ever carried a Worlds anthem before.
The track and its music video land on 8 October at 6 pm PDT, on streaming platforms and on the League of Legends YouTube channel. At the centre of the video: Faker, and T1's historic three-peat at the World Championship.
🎧 What Riot announced on 29 September
Riot kept the announcement short, so here is the whole thing in one list:
- Song: "Know My Name", the 13th Worlds anthem
- First: the first time a Riot virtual artist performs the Worlds anthem
- Release: 8 October at 6 pm PDT, on all major streaming platforms
- Video: premieres at the same time on the League of Legends YouTube channel
- Label: released through Riot Games and Virgin Music Group
- Live: opening ceremony of the Worlds 2026 Final, presented by Mastercard, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on 14 November
If you are waiting for the clip this week, it is not out yet. One week separates the Worlds 2026 anthem from the first match of the tournament.
🎤 Five champions, four real voices
True Damage is built on five League champions, each with a job in the group:
- Akali: rapper
- Ekko: rapper
- Qiyana: vocalist and rapper
- Senna: vocalist
- Yasuo: DJ and producer
The real artists perform the parts, and this year's line-up mixes K-pop, American R&B and Mexican pop:
- SOYEON of i-dle returns as Akali. She already voiced the character in K/DA and in True Damage's first run.
- Coco Jones, GRAMMY-winning R&B singer and actress, joins as Senna.
- Vic Mensa, GRAMMY-nominated rapper from Chicago, voices Ekko.
- Sofía Reyes, Mexican singer-songwriter and actress, voices Qiyana.
🌎 A multilingual cast for a US Worlds
Reyes pointed straight at the languages on the track. Hearing them come together in one song, she said, is beautiful, and it pulled out a side of her that her own music rarely shows.
Maria Egan, Global Head of Music & Events at Riot Games, tied the pick to the host city: with Worlds coming to New York this year, True Damage felt like the perfect artist to take on the anthem.
Read the two together and the strategy is plain. Worlds 2026 is played in the United States, the audience Riot is courting sits in NA and LATAM as much as in Korea, and the track mixes several languages across a cast that spans Korean, English and Mexican Spanish.
🏆 Faker at the centre of the video
Riot builds the video around one player. The story it tells is Faker's career, his recovery from defeat, and the run that ended in T1's historic three-peat.
It is a legacy video, not a hype reel, and Egan framed the logic behind the whole virtual-band strategy: for the most dedicated players and esports fans, the League champions in Riot's virtual bands are the superstars they most want to see on the Worlds stage.
No call here on what comes next. Riot's own framing is resilience rather than dominance.
🎼 From GIANTS to Know My Name: seven years between singles
"Know My Name", the Worlds 2026 anthem, will be True Damage's first release since "GIANTS" in 2019. Riot credits that debut single with more than 230 million streams across platforms.
The members spent the years in between on their own careers, while Riot Games Music kept releasing through other virtual acts. K/DA, Pentakill and the rest of the catalogue add up to more than 1,500 songs and 16 billion lifetime streams, per the division.
Past Worlds anthems went to outside artists, including NewJeans, Linkin Park and G.E.M. This year Riot keeps the song in-house.
📅 What it changes for Worlds 2026
- 8 October: "Know My Name" and its video
- 15 October: Play-In Stage opens in Los Angeles
- 14 November: Final at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, with True Damage live at the opening ceremony
The anthem lands a week before the first match, and the live performance lands at the end. Our Worlds 2026 format and dates guide has the full stage-by-stage calendar, and the ticket guide covers all three venues if Brooklyn is on your list. The Patch 26.19 notes hold the last balance changes before the tournament, and the CBLOL picture shows how the field fills up.
🎯 The takeaway
Riot handed its biggest musical slot to a group it owns, cast it across three languages, and pointed the video at the most decorated player in the game. The Worlds 2026 anthem is the 13th edition of the series, and the first one that needs no outside star.
While you wait for 8 October, the LoL ladder on Amber.gg runs all year: ranked games with real stakes, stat tracking and prize pools. New players start with a $5 signup bonus, and every ladder lives on the play page.
