Jon B Tailors Songs for Album Guests

ByABC News
March 28, 2001, 1:54 PM

March 27 -- After six years of recording and turning out hits such as "Someone to Love," "Pretty Girl," and "They Don't Know," R&B singer-writer-producer Jon B (née Buck) has lots of friends. And he didn't hesitate to use some of them on his recently released third album, Pleasures U Like. The guest list on the album includes B's mentor, Babyface, as well as rapper Nas, Faith Evans, AZ, and Cuban Link. And each of their songs were written expressly for them, B says, rather than trying to fit them into other songs he had crafted.

"Too many people put rappers on just to add a little politic to their record and say, 'Oh, I got Nas on my record,' or something like that," B, 26, explains. "Pretty much everything I did I tailor-made for each and every artist I did joints with. These are people who I sought after, and I'm a fan of their work. I felt like stylistically they fit their songs perfectly and everything came about very naturally and easily."

B says the album's Cuban Link track, "All I Want Is You," was actually pitched first to rapper Big Pun, who died three weeks after it was delivered to him. "I wanted to pay tribute to him and still get down with Terror Squad, his crew," B Says. "And Cuban is part of Terror Squad and also an MC I follow, and I like his sound. So I got him into the studio and laid it down, and it worked out great."

B will be on tour during April opening shows for K-Ci & JoJo.