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Jon B. admits he initially felt threatened by Robin Thicke’s success

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Dexter A. Jones/Getty ImagesJon B. may be one of the current practitioners of of “blue-eyed soul,” but it wasn’t long before fellow R&B crooner Robin Thicke became his competition. 

In a new interview with VladTV, the “They Don’t Know” singer admitted that he initially felt threatened by Thicke’s rapid success, and felt taken aback once he learned that Thicke was also being embraced by Jon’s longtime collaborators, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds and Andre Harrell.

“To not have that same energy with my career and watch it happen for someone else was definitely a challenge for me,” Jon explained. “It was humbling to watch another guy come into the scene and everyone’s asking, ‘What do you think about Robin Thicke?’ in every interview I ever did.”

And as the industry continued to compare the two vocalists, Jon received the ultimate reality check. 

“From the very beginning, I felt threatened because obviously that was sort of like my neck of the woods, the Babyface thing, and I felt kinda like: ‘Okay, this guy. He kinda came in and stole some of my wind’,” Jon explained. “It really was apparent for me early on. I let it kind of get to me a little bit and I feel people kind of fed into it a bit.” 

Jon admits, “I definitely had to adjust to the whole scene of it not being a new thing to be a white guy in R&B.”

However, Jon has no hard feelings toward Thicke, and is even open to collaborating with him.

“I would love to do a song together and leave it at that,” says Jon.

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