Jon B says he regrets his initial reaction to Gunna and Chloe Bailey sampling him.
In a new interview with Shirley Ju for the Shirley’s Temple podcast, the R&B singer was asked about his thoughts on Chloe and Gunna’s 2022 collaboration “You & Me” which samples his 1997 hit, “They Don’t Know.”
“I regretted how I spoke on it the first time because I wasn’t used to being on podcasts,” Jon said near the 48-minute mark in the video above. “First of all, I didn’t do a lot of podcasts. So I was sort of new to that whole thing of speaking my truths in a way.”
The 50-year-old singer said he recently appeared on another podcast whose host showed how Bailey, 26, reacted to his criticism during a 2024 interview with the Breakfast Club.
“It hurt me because I was like, ‘Man, that could be my daughter right there,’” he said, explaining that as a father of two daughters, aged 11 and 17, and a husband of 18 years, there’s a “respect factor” and “a lot of chivalry” in his household. “It hit different because I never wanna come off like a hater.”
Jon also claimed that Gunna and Bailey reached out for clearance after the song was released.
“I like having the ability to say ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ before something is released,” he said. “If it’s out already, the damage is done, you know what I mean?”
Jon made the comments he now regrets in a July 2024 episode of the Can We Talk R&B? podcast, where he called “You & Me” a “ratchet record” that he “couldn’t stand.”
“I wish they never did [that],” Jon said at the time. “[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. 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.”
Bailey later addressed Jon’s comments during a September 2024 episode of the Breakfast Club.
“Jon B is an incredible artist,” she said on the morning radio show. “If that song didn’t exist, we couldn’t sample it. I love what Gunna and I did to it. I’m sad he feels that way, but, hey, everyone has opinions.”
