Outside the Lines With Rap Genius - OTL 40: Milk Dee Excerpt #5 - Influences lyrics

SameOldShawn: What kind of music were you listening to at the time you started rapping, at the time the Audio Two started popping off? Because you have "Make It Funky," where you have the James Brown sample and all of that, and the sample's a little deeper in James Brown's catalog than most people go. Milk Dee: To be honest, I am a lover of music. I listen to everything. Especially back then. These days, I listen to a lot of older music. But I love everything. At that time, I was listening to a lot of James Brown, a lot of Oscar Brown, Junior, who I'm a huge fan of. I think part of my rap style comes from him. Do you know who he is? SOS: I don't. MD: Okay. Oscar Brown, Junior, he made a song called "Signifying Monkey," which is one of the best songs ever. You could Google it. I'll let you hear it -- I have it on my Spotify. Motown -- if you listen to those original First Priority [songs], there's a lot of Motown samples, and James Brown. But I listen to everything. And Beastie Boys and Run-DMC. But, like I said, I started rapping when I was nine. My idol was Kool Moe Dee and Treacherous Three and Grandmaster Caz and The Cold Crush Brothers. I used to listen to those mixtapes, the battle mixtapes. And when I heard that Kool Moe Dee/Busy Bee battle, that's when I decided that I wanted to rhyme. That's what really inspired me to start rapping.