Mamdani for years used July 4 to promote self-styled ‘Taliban’ rapper who 'worshipped' 9/11 hijacker

New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani for years marked the Fourth of July by sharing a photo of a rap group that is infamous for its glorification of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and for its praise for one of the 9/11 hijackers.

Mamdani wished his social media followers a “Happy 4th” on Independence Day in 2021, 2023, and 2024 — less than one year before the failed rapper and socialist activist became the Democratic Party’s nominee — in tweets accompanied by a picture from a music video of the two lead singers of the controversial rap group called The Diplomats (also known as Dipset), who were famous — and infamous — for some of their pro-terrorism-tinged lyrics.

Mamdani, a longtime rap aficionado who took a largely unsuccessful stab at being a rapper himself, has tweeted “Happy 4th” exactly four times — sharing the picture of the pro-terrorist Dipset rap group on the Fourth of July in 2021, 2023, and 2024 — and then, only after becoming the Democratic nominee, sent out a much more anodyne, standard-fare, politician-style tweet in 2025 wishing his followers “Happy 4th” featuring pictures from a Democratic Club BBQ held in Queens.

Rappers "worship" ringleader of 9/11 hijackings that murdered almost 3,000 people

The Harlem-based rap group’s own lyrics from the 2003 album that Mamdani repeatedly promoted describe the hip-hop collective as the “Dipset Taliban”, “Harlem’s own Taliban”, and “Harlem’s Al-Qaeda” and described the group’s songs as “9/11 music” — while one of the group’s main singers compared himself favorably to Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and declared in a song that “I worship the prophet” Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the 19 terrorist hijackers on 9/11 and who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Mamdani's own lyrics praise Hamas terrorists

Mamdani’s own rap lyrics praising “the Holy Land Five” — convicted by the Justice Department for supporting the terrorist group Hamas — seem to dovetail to some extent with the views expressed by Dipset.

Mamdani’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Just the News previously reported on how Mamdani’s years-long rise to prominence was assisted by Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, whose views on Israel have stirred years of controversy and accusations of anti-Semitism. Just the News also described how the self-described socialist candidate has shared a host of Communist views.

Nearly 3,000 innocent people were killed by the Al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, after Atta and his fellow hijackers crashed planes into the two towers in New York City, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, following a revolt by the passengers on American Flight 93. 

The attack was carried out by the terrorists as bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were shielded in Afghanistan by the Taliban, who, after two decades of war following the attack, took over Afghanistan again in 2021 following a chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal and evacuation.

Lyrics changed before album's release

The Dipset photo that Mamdani was long fond of sharing came from the music video for the group’s “Dipset Anthem” song, from the group’s highly-successful Diplomatic Immunity album released in March 2003. The group’s main members at the time were Cam'ron, Juelz Santana, Jim Jones, and Freekey Zekey. 

One of the album’s songs, I Love You, originally featured Santana singing: "I worship the prophet / The great Mohamed Omar Atta / For his courage behind the wheel of the plane / Reminds me when I was dealin' the 'caine [cocaine]."

Due to backlash at the time in 2002 ahead of the album’s release, the lyrics were changed to: “I worship the late prophet, the great Muhammad Ali / For the words he spoke, that stung like a bee.” Ali was very much alive at the time, showing the awkwardness of the lyrical change.

Santana defended the original lyrics in an August 2002 interview with the New Musical Express, where he again praised Atta and implied that the U.S. was to blame for the 9/11 attacks.

"I feel my Diplomats are my team and I'm going to do whatever it takes for them, for my people, the same way as he [Atta] did for his people,” Santana said. “Not that I support him or what he did, but in order for him to do that, it had to take courage and love for what he believed in. A lot of New York people don't have that. Maybe if they did, something like that wouldn't happen."

Santana insisted that "I never said I worshiped him, I said I worshiped his courage. It had nothing to do with 9/11 or me supporting them because I know people in the towers too. If you really listen to the song, it was talking about that and the whole situation. No matter what anybody says, that was courage right there. … I've looked in the dictionary and I've defined the word courage."

"If Eminem can get away with the things he does, then I can get away with what I do,” Santana argued. “And to be honest, I really don't think I did anything wrong. It's not like I'm coming out speaking out all the time about the Taliban. What I do is music — it's words coming out of my mouth. That was one sentence, you understand."

Santana then suggested that 9/11 may have been justified.

"Why did that happen? Why did that happen on September 11, that is my question. If that had never happened, I would have never been able to sing that. It's because United States have been going over there trespassing, stealing their stuff... now they make it seem like they came over here and bombed us for nothing,” the rapper said.

Santana also released his own album, From Me to U, in 2003, which featured a song titled “Okay, Okay.” The rapper again compared himself to Atta.

“But we gangstas, riders, 9/11 survivors / Niggas still want beef then holla / You think you bout it, get your piece and holla / Squeeze the piece when I think it's problems, do you follow? A young Mohammed Atta, no plane lessons / Cocaine lessons, to supply the towers, Oh! / Before they crashed and divided the towers / I'm hurtin, working hard to reprovide the towers.”

The uncut version of that song is also available on YouTube, where Santana can be heard describing himself as a young version of the 9/11 hijacking ringleader.

Santana again defended his praise for Atta during an interview with VladTV in November 2022, saying, “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. Not that far, pardon me, not that far. But I think y’all know what I mean. … Like, you would fucking get in a plane and run that shit into a building, like you love something like that? That’s strong.”

The original and uncut version of the song from the Diplomatic Immunity album is available on YouTube, where the Dipset lyrics praising the 9/11 hijacker can be heard.

The lyrics of the song go on to say: “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 / You follow me homie?” The song continues that “I’m headed straight to the top, motherfucker / Diplomat, Taliban, slash Roc motherfucker.”

In a song titled “Gangsta” on Dipset’s Diplomatic Immunity album, Santana favorably compared himself to the Al-Qaeda founder, rapping, “Yes, hey come again, nigga, I've been watching / I've been plotting, I'm the realest thing popping / Since Osama Bin Laden, so pay homage.” The rapper also said in the song that “I ain't mad, that the Towers fell / I'm mad the coke price went up, and this crack won't sell.”

Mamdani’s own background supporting fundamentalist Muslims and terrorists

Before formally entering the political scene, Mamdani tried his hand at a rap music career, including a number of songs that lamented what he saw as the difficulty of being Muslim in America. In his lyrics, he praised a group of American Muslims convicted for their support for terrorism. 

A heavily auto-tuned electronic rap track titled “Salaam” in March 2017 remains on Mamdani's SoundCloud page. The song was first unearthed by social media poster Canary Mission, who pointed out that Mamdani sang about — with praise — that Mamdani sent his "love" to The Holy Five, a convicted Hamas terror-funding group.

“No ban, no wall, build it up, we’ll make it fall” the lyrics say in a clear reference to Trump’s immigration restrictions placed on a number of Muslim-majority countries in his first term and to Trump’s vow to build a wall along the U.S. southern border. The lyrics continue, “Me llamo [my name is] Zohran // My love to the Holy Land Five // You better look ‘em up.”

Mamdani tweeted in March 2017 that the song was “about being Muslim in America today” and in April 2017 that it was “about being Muslim in NYC today.”

Mamdani has also repeatedly accused Israel of committing a genocide, tweeting out the allegation dozens of times. Mamdani began accusing Israel of a genocide two weeks after the Hamas terrorist attacks in October 2023.

Mamdani’s own statement the day after the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas at a music festival in Israel made no mention of the terrorist group and included condemnation of Israel only. He lamented "Netanyahu's declaration of war" — but there was no condemnation of the Hamas-led attacks which had raped and murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians attending a music festival as well as hundreds in kibbutzim near the Gaza border. Dozens of hostages had been taken just the day before, many of whom were then murdered. 

Earlier this summer, Mamdani also defended his use of the divisive phrase “globalizing the intifada.” Mamdani said he was misunderstood, and lamented that “as a Muslim man who grew up post-9/11, I’m all too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning.”

Mamdani has also tweeted repeatedly about supporting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement.

The future Democratic nominee also said in 2020 it was the “framework” and "lens" of Ramadan which “kind of in many ways drew me into socialism.”