It was the summer of 1995. I was 15 years old at the time. I heard a song play on the radio called "Someone To Love" by Babyface. At the time, I thought the song was his, so I associated him the single. When school began that fall, I told a girlfriend about this new song with Babyface that I was quite fond of. She corrected me and said, it's a duet with Babyface and Jon B. "Don't you know who he is?"
I thought to myself..."no I don't. Should I?"
That evening my favorite block on Music Television came on. The show MTV Jams premiered the video for "Someone To Love by Jon B. and Babyface. It was at that moment for the first time I saw Jon B. Yes, I was just like everyone else when I saw him singing and thought, "wait a second, a white guy is singing this?" He drew me in like a magnet to steel. His facial expressions, charisma, soulful voice, and extremely sexy goatee made me melt like an ice cream sundae on a hot summer day. This was the watershed moment, I was enthralled, beguiled, and spellbound by this man for all 4 minutes and 32 seconds of this video.
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| Jon and I at the 2002 Suffolk Peanut Festival. Suffolk, VA |
Pre-Jon B. era I had never really found myself attracted to white men before. Yes, I had a New Kids crush on Donnie Wahlberg and I can also remember as a child thinking that the white actors on a number of soap operas my Mom watched looked cute, but I never really felt a deep seeded attraction the way I felt towards Jon B. He was different. Well let's start off with the fact that he's not your "average" white guy. He's more black than most white men and I think what truly did it for me was his love and appreciation for women of color.
For the first time, I saw a white man desiring a black woman in a music video. I remember many years ago on General Hospital I saw an interracial couple with a white actor and a black actress and I was so intrigued. It was very appealing to me to see that kind of interracial relationship. Seeing interracial relationships on TV and film was not a unique concept for me, but it was whenever I saw black women as the eye of affection from a non-black man that was mesmerizing to me. I grew up in Virginia Beach, VA. In my city, interracial couples come a dime a dozen. However, growing up I always saw black men with white women. It never really bothered me, like it does for many other black women, but I always wondered in the back of my childlike mind why was it easier for black men to be with white women than for white men to be with black women?
Now as far as Jon B. was concerned, he was a first in the sense that I never saw a white man or any non-black man for that matter, have such a profound attraction for black women. So I will be honest and say that my affinity for Jon B goes beyond his music and quite frankly beyond his race. There was something genuine and real about his affections and even lyrically in his songs he's expressed it in such a transparent way that you can't help but notice that his words speak from his heart. For example in the song 'Mystery 4 Two' off his debut album Bonafide he sings, "Love stains my mind with ebony you".
He also has a song on his album Pleasures You Like called 'Cocoa Brown'. This man is not ashamed for his penchant for women of color. That's simply just what he likes and respects. I have been guilty or let's say foolish for dating guys who have either favored Jon (in the looks department) or had a kind of 'swagger' that Jon exudes in his style and music. It's almost as if I've tried (on several attempts) to find my carbon copy of Jon B since it would have been next to impossible to seize the real thing. After all, Jon lived on the West coast over 3,000 miles away from me and I was just an obsessed fan that would probably turn him off anyway if he really knew how much I was into him.
I'll never forget my freshman year of college, I had a picture that I snatched from my Sister 2 Sister Magazine of Jon sitting on some steps wearing a sexy green suit, and a white guy in my class leaned over looking at the photo and said to me, "you know, everyone has told me I kind of look like Jon B."
Bless his heart I didn't have the courage to tell the poor guy that he's been lied to.
I don't know if it makes me weird, disturbed, or insecure as to why many of the men I have been attracted to look similar to Jon B. As I've gotten older and have suffered many mistakes from these exes, I have come to realize that I'm probably not going to find that carbon copy I've been looking for all of these years. However, what I do know is that "looks" shouldn't be everything either. I can go into a deeper spiel about my superficial perspectives on finding a mate and my list that I conjured up several years ago that got me booked on the now canceled Greg Behrendt Show.
In the meantime I will sigh and continue to listen to past and present Jon B records fantasizing about a man whom I've loved for several years now and will always continue to support. I actually hope that my future mate does not look like Jon so that way nature's way of getting back at me for being so narrow-minded can laugh in my face and say "HA"!Jon B. by the way is also releasing the B-Sides Collection on Jan 29th. You can go to his website and pre-order the album here.
I'll always love me some Jon B, but now it's really time to grow up and expand my horizons. Don't get me wrong, I'm attracted to a wide-range of men. Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, etc. I'm the rainbow coalition for sexxified men. However, at my core, I still always feel goosebumps when I see a Jon B lookalike walking down the street or playing a character on TV. There is something about a close fade and a chin strap goatee that just makes me go wild. Damn you Jon B. for doing this to me. Maybe I need a hypnotherapist to wash the Jon B. memories away.
Then again...maybe not.
