Jim Jones and Juelz Santana have come to 21 Savage’s defense after the Atlanta rapper came under fire for questioning Nas’ relevancy in the rap game.
In a recent sit-down with No Jumper, the Diplomats duo brought some perspective to the ongoing debate and argued 21’s controversial comments, which were made on Clubhouse earlier this month, were misconstrued.
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“You can’t even have no opinions out here nowadays,” Jones said. “And they’re so quick to misconstrue everything you say. I don’t believe he was trying to say it in a malicious way.”
“He wasn’t saying it in a malicious way at all,” Santana concurred.
“I’m just looking at what 21 Savage was saying. I don’t think he meant it as what people were taking it as,” Jones continued. “In today’s society, in the younger generation, these kids are very lit out here and they put ‘lit’ and ‘relevant’ in the same thing when it’s two different things.”
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The Harlem natives went on to say that the younger generation needs to define what they think is “lit,” and that if Nas had instead criticized 21 Savage, the comments wouldn’t have been controversial because of his legendary status.
“They feel like because 21 ain’t Nas, he don’t got a right to talk about Nas and that’s the fucked up thing in the world we live in,” Santana said. “We all have a right to our opinion because we all do it every day from the comments we make.”
21 Savage’s comments, which came shortly after Nas and Hit-Boy released their latest album King’s Disease 3, struck a chord almost immediately, as everyone in his Clubhouse chatroom began arguing over each other to push back on the claim.
“I don’t feel like he’s relevant,” 21 said. “I don’t feel like Nas is relevant.”
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Once the argument calmed down, the Slaughter Gang boss claimed that the Queensbridge icon isn’t relevant today, but has a “loyal” fan base and makes good music still. The heated discussion seemed to revolve around ’90s rappers that are still active.
21 went on to clarify his point in a separate statement on Twitter, writing: “I would never disrespect nas or any legend who paved the way for me y’all be tryna take stuff and run with it.”
While Juelz Santana and Jim Jones clearly have empathy for 21 Savage, noted Nas fan Kodak Blackblasted the Savage Mode rapper for his remarks.
“Talking about, ‘Oh, Nas irrelevant.’ How the fuck Nas irrelevant, hoe?” he said on Instagram Live earlier this month while addressing the controversy. “How the fuck Nas ain’t relevant, homie? N-gga smoking dick! Did a fucking Drake [album]. We salute Drake, we love Drake, okay, whatever.”
Kodak continued to defend Nas by saying: “A n-gga fucked up about Nas. I love that boy, homie. I ain’t saying n-ggas ain’t lit or whatever and they on they real. Nas wasn’t bothering you, boy. I wasn’t bothering you, n-gga.”
While Nas is enjoying the spoils of King’s Disease 3, 21 is also riding high off the release of his Her Loss joint project with Drake, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 after collecting over 400,000 album-equivalent units in its first week.
Drake and 21’s joint LP reportedly produced one of the biggest streaming weeks ever, generating around 500 million. It was Drake’s second time this year topping the Billboard 200 following his seventh studio album, Honestly, Nevermind, which arrived in June.
