Songs with Famous Uncredited Artists

This playlist of songs that use an uncredited artist’s vocals blew my mind.

We know that pop songs are commonly passed around from artist to artist and end up with a long list of collaborators. However, you might not realize how many popular songs actually include hidden vocals from another major artist.

If you look up the song’s full credits, the artist will often be credited with backing vocals there, but you won’t find their name as a featured artist on the song itself.

Some major examples of this include:

• The Black Eyed Peas song Where Is The Love which has Justin Timberlake’s voice on the chorus. Apparently, Timberlake’s record company didn’t want him to suffer from over-exposure since he was already appearing heavily in the charts at that time.
• You’ll also hear J.T. in the Britney Spears song What It’s Like to Be Me from Brit’s third album.
• The song Play by Jennifer Lopez has its chorus sung by a completely different artist – that’s Christina Milian! Christina also wrote the song.
• Two more J Lo songs, I’m Real and Ain’t It Funny, heavily feature vocals by Ashanti.
• Listen closely and you’ll hear Ed Sheeran’s background vocals on songs like Love Yourself by Justin Bieber and Your Song by Rita Ora.
• This is What You Came For by Calvin Harris and Rihanna includes vocals by Taylor Swift (specifically the ooh ooh ooh part.)
• Speaking of Taylor Swift, listen closely and you’ll hear Imogen Heap as a backing singer on the 1989 favorite Clean.
• Britney’s Blackout album includes famous vocals by Robyn on Piece of Me and Keri Hilson on Break the Ice and Gimme More.
• Yes, that’s Michael Jackson on the Rockwell song Somebody’s Watching Me.
• You’ll hear Beyoncé crooning on Frank Ocean’s Pink + White.
• …and that’s the rest of Destiny’s Child on Beyoncé’s song Check On It.
• Though technically a sample, Avril Lavigne’s voice is used on Rihanna’s Cheers (Drink to That).
• Listen closely and you’ll hear Sia sing background vocals on Beyoncé’s Standing on the Sun and Camila Cabello’s Crying in the Club.
• Bebe Rexha’s vocals remain on the song she co-wrote with Eminem, The Monster (featuring Rihanna.)

Anyone else find this fascinating?! Take a listen to the full playlist below!

Songs That Use a Famous Artist’s Vocals Without Crediting Them

Spotify playlist:

This site is dedicated to fun playlist themes! Have we missed a song that should be included in this playlist? Comment below to let us know — we’ll add it!