Jon B. has come out of hiding to give his opinion on Gunna and Chloe Bailey sampling his popular song “They Don’t Know.”
The singer recently sat down with Ian Von’s “Can We Talk About R&B?” podcast and spoke on the two artists putting their own spin on his 1997 hit. While the song secured the No. 7 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1997 and is now a staple in R&B, the singer-songwriter mentioned that despite not getting sampled often, he was not pleased with Gunna and Chloe’s version.
“It does get sampled every year… Someone last year was Gunna and Chlöe Bailey, they put that ratchet record out that I couldn’t stand,” he said.
Additionally, Jon revealed that the artists never cleared the sample and called out Gunna in an effort to get him to handle business correctly.
“I wish they never did [that]. [They] never actually never got my rights to do that record, either, so Gunna we gotta holler about that. … That’s some business shit we got to handle. Yeah I mean, you know what, it’s all a compliment to what we did,” Jon added. “That’s [producers and co-songwriters] Tim [Kelley] and Bob’s [Robinson] compliment, that’s my compliment, but at the same time my lane is my lane and my area is my area and I earned that. If you made a hit in your area, you do your song whatever it is, I’m not going to just come into your area take your joint, and make it mine and not pay you or whatever.”
Jon’s comments sparked conversation amongst social media users, with some siding with the singer and others blasting him for making such remarks.
“I 100% understand him not being happy about sample clearance, but issue a copyright strike or cease & desist or [whatever] you have to do but the scorn and way he’s talking about two young black artists is incredibly disappointing,” singer Isadore Noir wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Another user also weighed in on Jon’s statement to defend Gunna and Chloe, writing, “A white man calling two black ppl ratchet is crazy.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Jon slammed Justin Timberlake for his recent single and called the accompanying music video “demonic.”
“That new single is trash,” he said. I’m not feeling his music at all anymore. And the video is even more trash … I don’t like all this demonic sh*t. You would sell your soul to be popular or something? Or to give your allegiance some hidden power behind the scenes?”
