Songfacts®:

• "If You Had My Love" was Jennifer Lopez' first single; it established her as a singing star as well as a popular actress and dancer. Over the next few years, she became one of the most sought-after entertainers and cultivated a glamorous image through high-profile romances and numerous public appearances.
• Lopez was not known as a strong vocalist, and she relied on a talented team of writers and producers to create a marketable sound for her. Rodney Jerkins, who has worked on many R&B/pop hits, produced this track.
• In this song, Lopez is telling a man what he has to do if he wants to be in a relationship with her. She insists that he stay faithful and give her true love.
• At the time, the Internet was relatively new and streaming video was in its infancy. As the public discovered the voyeuristic nature of The Net through webcams, the video for this song capitalized on the trend by showing a man looking up "Jennifer Lopez" online and being transported to a world where he can watch her in action by clicking various links. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Donovan Berry - El Dorado, AR, for above 2
• Rodney Jerkins originally wrote the groove with Michael Jackson in mind, but producer Cory Rooney suggested trying it out on Lopez. LaShawn Daniels, who co-wrote the Destiny's Child hit "Say My Name" with Jerkins, wrote the lyrics and melodies with Rooney.
• Rooney remembers the recording session, where Lopez was doubting her singing abilities: "I would always tell her that this is no different than her acting job. Forget technique. Just close your eyes and believe in every word you're singing. Don't worry about where you're standing or anything like that as far as positioning on the mic, because it's the job of the engineer to capture your voice. Just be you. Go into character for what this song is going to require and we'll pull off the rest."
• The Dark Child remix of "If You Had My Love," released along with the radio edit on the single, is an early use of Auto-Tune as a vocal effect. The software was designed correct pitch, and by 1999 was in many recording studios - it was particularly handy for singers like Lopez who weren't classically trained or very experienced. But an extreme setting creates a robotic effect similar to a Vocoder, but more organic.
  
  When a young rapper named T-Pain heard the remix, he went on a mission looking for the effect so he could use it himself. It took him over a year to figure it out because Auto-Tune use was so secretive - singers didn't want the public to know about it, and neither did producers or publicity teams. T-Pain put the effect all over his first solo album, Rappa Ternt Sanga, in 2005. This opened the floodgates, and soon the Auto-Tune was ubiquitous in hip-hop.