Outside the Lines With Rap Genius - Big Daddy Kane Excerpt #2 - "Set It Off" lyrics

BDK: "Set It Off." I think about James Brown's "Sex Machine," how you're amped before it start. How he just, [adopts James Brown voice] "I'm ready to get into my thing. Moving, grooving. Can we count it off?" It's like, the energy James is bringing. You ain't even hear the beat drop yet, but you sitting there feeling like Bobby Byrd -- "Yeah! Yeah!" You know what I'm saying? And then they, [singing] "1,2,3,4 -- Get up" I'm like, I want to do something like that, where I just bring the energy before the beat even drop. So that's why, with "Set It Off," you see it start off just with the rhymes -- "Let it roll/Get bold/I just can't..." and then the beat, [sings] "Duh nuh nuh" -- it comes in later. That I tried to model behind James Brown's "Sex Machine"