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Jon B.: The Slow JamZ

Eleven slow jams from a singer who was accepted by Black radio in a way very few white artists ever have been, and who earned it.

Jon B.

Jonathan David Buck grew up in Rhode Island and Southern California in a musical family — both parents were classically trained musicians and teachers. He was signed to Tracey Edmonds' Yab Yum label, an imprint of Babyface's Epic-distributed operation, which put him inside the most successful R&B machine of the decade from the start.

The Babyface connection was formative. Jon B. wrote and produced much of his own material, plays multiple instruments, and his records sit squarely in the 1990s quiet storm tradition rather than attempting anything crossover.

That he was fully accepted by an audience with every reason to be sceptical is worth stating plainly. It happened because the records were good and because he never positioned himself as anything other than a student of the form.

What to listen for

"They Don't Know" is the essential record — a number one R&B hit built on a sample of Rene & Angela's "I'll Be Good," and one of the best slow jams of the late 1990s.

"Someone to Love" with Babyface was the breakthrough, and hearing the two voices together is instructive — they share a lightness and a preference for staying inside the melody.

"Isn't It Scary" is the deep cut most people miss and is arguably the best thing here.

"Pretty Girl" and "Before It's Gone" are from the early period, and "Only One" and "Love Hurts" from later.

"Everybody Here Wants You" is a Jeff Buckley cover, which is a genuinely surprising choice and works because both singers approach a slow song the same way — patiently, with a lot of air.

"Gone Before Light" and "One More Dance" close it out.

Go deeper

Cool Relax (1997) is the album and contains "They Don't Know."

His duet with 2Pac on "Are U Still Down" is the record that most cemented his standing and is worth finding.

For the Babyface world he came from: Babyface's own The Day and For the Cool in You, plus the LaFace catalogue generally.

And for the wider question of white singers in R&B, the honest comparisons are Teena Marie — who remains the gold standard and was fully claimed by the audience — and Bobby Caldwell. All three succeeded by treating the tradition as something to serve rather than to visit.

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