Songfacts®:

• In this club-ready song, Keri Hilson lets a guy know that he's turning her on, and it will be worth his while if he makes his move. The song features Lil Wayne in all his Auto-Tune glory playing the part of the guy activating his A-game to make the connection. The song dropped in 2008, a breakout year for Wayne. That's when he released his album "Tha Carter III," with the #1 hit "Lollipop." device in his verse.
• "Turnin' Me On" was Keri Hilson's first big hit as a lead artist, but she had a feature on the 2007 Timbaland hit "The Way I Are," and songwriting credits on two of Britney Spears' hits: "Gimme More" and "Break The Ice."
  
  She's a musical Swiss Army Knife, talented as a singer, producer, songwriter and music video actress. Over the next few years she had her hands on at least 100 songs in some capacity, including "Hero" by Nas, "Number One" by R. Kelly, and "Don't Hold Your Breath" by Nicole Scherzinger. She released two albums during this time, with "Turnin' Me On" part of her 2008 solo debut, In a Perfect World... In 2012 she left the industry after suffering a crippling depression. She was still at the top of her game but suffering inside, which she later revealed. She took a few acting gigs before returning in 2025 with her third album, We Need To Talk.
• Hilson was part of the Atlanta hip-hop scene, which put her in the ambit of many established music-makers, including Polow Da Don, who co-wrote "Turnin' Me On" with Hilson and Zach Wallace (Lil Wayne wrote his verse), and produced it with Hilson and Timbaland. Polow also produced "London Bridge" for Fergie and "Love in This Club" for Usher. He shows up in the music video.
• An unofficial remix of "Turnin' Me On" surfaced in 2009 with a verse by Hilton where she trash talks unnamed women in the industry. Here's a sample:
  
  Your vision cloudy if you think that you're the best
  You can dance, she can sing
  But she need to move it to the left, left
  She need to go have some babies
  She needs to sit down, she fake
  Them other chicks ain't even worth my time to talk about
  
  The "move it to the left" line seems to reference Beyoncé, whom Hilson hadn't worked with. In her 2006 hit "Irreplaceable," Bey sings:
  
  To the left, to the left
  Everything you own in the box to the left
  
  This unprovoked attack caused a lot of consternation for Hilson as Beyoncé's fans took to comment sections and social media to stand up for their queen. Hilson found herself answering questions about it in interviewed, pushing talk of her accomplishments aside. She tried to explain that it wasn't about Beyoncé and deflected these questions as best she could, but the controversy kept dogging her.
  
  Details emerged with Hilson appeared on the radio show The Breakfast Club in April 2025 to promote her We Need To Talk album. She said her producer Polow Da Don pressured her to record the offending verse, and she didn't write it. While Hilson declined to name the lyricist behind the verse, songwriter Ester Dean came forward, posting an open letter to clear the air.
  
  "Polow asked me to write a remix verse for Keri Hilson – something street, something for the culture," she wrote. "I wasn't in the room with Keri writing this together. I didn't know her personally. She was already star. I was just a writer trying to earn my place."