Juelz Santana has revisited his controversial 9/11 terrorist lyric that was intended to appear on Dipset‘s Diplomatic Immunity album, defending it as a “dope-ass line.”
On an early version of The Diplomats’ 2003 song “I Love You,” the Harlem native rapped: “I worship the late prophet, the great Mohamed / Omar Atta, for his courage behind the wheel of the plane / Remind me when I was dealin’ the ‘caine.”
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The line is a reference to Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City, but the leaked version didn’t make it onto the album.
Speaking to VladTV in a new interview, Juelz Santana admitted the line was “insensitive,” but believes it has stood the test of time.
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“I think the timing was just bad, more than anything,” he said. “But, you know, I stood on what I said at the time, it wasn’t like I was running from it. I didn’t mean it in that sense of trying to big up a terrorist or anything. I think, like I said, the time just made it so touchy, because it was so close and it just felt like it was insensitive, and I get that.
“But now, shit was a fucking dope-ass line. Shit was hard, like, come on. But, what I was really referring to was just the courage for somebody to do such a fucking crazy, wild-ass behavior like that. To love something to that degree, to believe in something to that degree, is crazy and it’s strong.”
Juelz Santana quickly clarified his stance 9/11, explaining he doesn’t condone the terrorist attack but simply admires someone willing to commit such an extreme act for their beliefs.
“And shit, I wish somebody — not to do that specific thing — but I wish somebody believed in me or loved me enough to just go that far,” he said. “Not that far, pardon me, not that far. But I think y’all know what I mean.
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“I was just kinda like insinuating just for somebody to go so hard for something, that’s the comparison I was just making. You would fucking get in a plane and run that shit into a building? Like, you love something that [much] – that’s strong.”
He added: “So that’s what I was trying to insinuate. It had nothing to do with the action or 9/11 or anything. [What] I was insinuating in the actual line was the power behind just somebody believing in something that much that they would do something so crazy. It’s like, that’s the world we live in, and I just kinda touched on it.”
Elsewhere in his “I Love You” verse, Juelz Santana showed empathy for 9/11 victims by rapping: “I still smell the rotten people that lay / Down in ground zero, forgotten, left there for days / Probably left there to stay, left to decay / Broken pieces of towers, left as their graves, ay / I pray, let them be saved ’til then, that’s just a suggestion I made.”
Santana wasn’t the only Dipset member who touched on 9/11 on Diplomatic Immunity. On the song “Gangsta,” Cam’ron spit: “I ain’t mad that the Towers fell / I’m mad the coke price went up, and this crack won’t sell.”
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On the same track, Santana also mentioned Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who was behind the September 11 attacks: “I’ve been plotting, I’m the realest thing popping / Since Osama Bin Laden, so pay homage”
Revisit Dipset’s “I Love You” below.
