Montell Jordan Recalls Madonna’s Blunt Question During Their First Meeting: “Don’t I Own You?” [Video]

Madonna didn’t hold back when she met Montell Jordan at the height of his fame in the ’90s.

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On the May 1st episode of the “We Sound Crazy” podcast, Jordan recalled being introduced to the pop superstar at the Grammys after the massive success of his 1995 debut single, “This Is How We Do It.”

“When I reach out my hand to shake her hand, she looks at me and she goes, ‘Don’t I own you?’” he remembered. Initially confused, he later connected the dots.

“When ‘This Is How We Do It’ runs up the charts, before it gets to number one, there’s a song there called Take a Bow from Madonna,” Jordan explained. “’This Is How We Do It’ is the song that took Madonna’s record off the charts.”

Jordan said Madonna’s label, Maverick Records, had tried to secure publishing rights to his hit, but he declined.

“They tried to do a publishing deal with me for my portion of ‘This Is How We Do It,’ and we wouldn’t do a deal with them.” However, his late co-writer Oji Pierce did sign with Maverick. “She was still basically saying, ‘Yeah, don’t I own you, because I still have that spot that you had, that number one spot,’” he concluded.

The R&B anthem is now certified 5x platinum by the RIAA.