Fabolous Reflects on ‘Ghetto Fabolous’ Dropping on 9/11: ‘It Was Never Really Just About the Album Anymore’

Fabolous’ life led up to the arrival of his Ghetto Fabolous debut, but the Sept. 11, 2001, release date became overshadowed by one of the darkest days in U.S. history with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which killed 2,977 people.

The Brooklyn rapper sat down for an upcoming episode of The Debut Live to reflect on his first LP’s arrival, which quickly took on another meaning and was moved to the back burner with the Sept. 11 tragedy dominating the global news cycle.

“I got woke up to the planes going in the building,” he says in a clip from the episode arriving Sept. 18. “First thing, somebody’s like, ‘Turn on the TV.’ … We was like, ‘Whoa!’ So we not really thinking about the album anymore.”

Before seeing the planes crashing into the Twin Towers, Fabolous initially thought Jay-Z, whose The Blueprint also dropped the same day, played a role in canceling all of the events Fab had planned to promote the album on release day.

“My first thought when I first woke up, somebody was like, ‘Everything is canceled,'” he recalls. “I’m just waking up and somebody’s saying everything’s canceled to me. I’m like, ‘Jay hating on a young Brooklyn n—a, man!'”

“Now we not really focused on the album. We trying to see what’s going on in the state of the world,” the rapper continues. “It was never really just about the album anymore … We didn’t know if an album or anything mattered at this point. It was a very crazy time.”

Amid the tragedy, Loso’s Ghetto Fabolous debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with 143,000 albums sold, while Hov’s The Blueprint topped the chart.

Hosted by Carl Lamarre and produced by House of Aces, The Debut Live has partnered with Brandon Pankey and his Apex network as the streaming partner for the series.

The full episode drops on Sept. 18. Watch the clip of Fabolous below.