Freeze Corleone continues to cause media stir.
The rapper from Seine-Saint-Denis has been embroiled in a new controversy since last Saturday and the opening of a preliminary investigation against him for advocating terrorism.
At the origin of the outcry this time, an implicit reference to the attack of July 14, 2016 in Nice in his song “Haaland”, released last Thursday.
Since then, the prefectures of the North and then the Rhône have canceled two concerts by Issa Lorenzo Diakhaté (his real name), respectively in Lille and Lyon.
In response, his lawyers filed two appeals, the first of which was rejected this Thursday afternoon by the administrative court.
Since his debut, the 28-year-old rapper has repeatedly found himself in controversy due to lyrics deemed anti-Semitic, racist or advocating Nazism.
A mysterious artist evolving against the tide of the mainstream music industry, Freeze Corleone has released around ten musical projects since 2016. Despite his growing success over the albums, the singer maintains a shroud of mystery over him in n 'granting no interviews, which cultivates the fascination of his fans.
“I was born in Les Lilas, I grew up in Pantin and I went to high school in Dakar,” is the only concession that Les Inrocks managed to extract from him in 2017.
Niche references
The one who established himself as a pioneer of drill (a new style of hip-hop with often violent, dark lyrics on slow rhythms often with auto-tune which transforms the voice) in France evolves within 667, a collective set up on his initiative between Paris, Lyon and Dakar several years ago.
The group cultivates a specific universe in its productions, full of references to video games, football and freemasonry.
“The particularity of 667 is that the members take great pleasure in mixing pop culture with esotericism, in disguising references that only speak to initiates with images common to everyone in a popular imagination », noted Yard in 2019.
In his solo pieces, the artist has also used since his beginnings cryptic references, “name dropping” and semantic experiments, likely to immediately lead the uninitiated listener astray.
“Through his multiplication of references and his commitment, he stands out from current artists who favor flow and melody.
Its unique character explains its success,” whispers an agent working in the French rap world.
Among his favorite themes, conspiracy theories almost inevitably come up, from references to the Illuminati to the Big Pharma industry, including hidden pedophile networks.
In his pieces, we also note an obsession with the supposed wealth of the Jews, which would ensure their domination over the world.
An old anti-Semitic refrain.
Jumble: “I have to spin the khaliss (money in the Wolof language,
Editor's note
) in my community like a Jew” or even “Fuck a Rotschild, Fuck a Rockefeller”.
Comments which notably earned him the support of the controversial comedian Dieudonné, who declared last September that he shared “something in common” with the rapper who partly grew up in Pantin.
A conspiratorial vision that fulfills a “social function”
For Sylvain Delouvée, researcher in social psychology at Rennes 2 University, Freeze Corleone stands out as an “openly conspiratorial” artist.
The rapper's texts are not intended to "encourage his listeners to adhere to a particular theory", but do indeed fulfill an obvious "social function", this conspiracy expert tells us.
By using the specific rhetoric of “
I am not a sheep
”, the artist “creates social cohesion around his deliberately anti-system worldview”.
Without "the desire to convince one's listeners", conspiracy here would therefore be more "a political element than linked to a true belief", continues the specialist on the subject.
His comments made him hit the headlines on several occasions.
“I would rather be accused of anti-Semitism than of rape like Gérald Darmanin,” Freeze Corleone rapped last September in “Shakkat,” taken from his latest album “ADC.”
Thus referring to the accusations of sexual harassment, breach of trust and rape which have targeted the current Minister of the Interior.
A dismissal of the case was pronounced in his favor by the Court of Cassation this Wednesday, February 14.
The artist's comments had been firmly denounced by Licra, which regularly takes up and compiles extracts of the rapper's texts deemed racist and/or anti-Semitic on social networks.
Several of the rapper's previous concerts had already been canceled last fall.
Freeze Corleone, had already been the subject of an investigation in 2020 for “provocation of racial hatred” after the broadcast of clips containing in particular lyrics such as “I arrive determined like Adolf in the 1930s” or “all the RAF (nothing to do with it) days of the Holocaust.”
The Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin himself, like several deputies and members of the government, was then indignant at “unspeakable” comments.
The case was finally dismissed, but he was dropped by his label Universal Music, denouncing “unacceptable racist comments”.
An assertion denied by the singer's team this Thursday.
Also readFreeze Corleone affair: how do record companies control rappers' lyrics?
Questioned on this subject during questions to the government, the Minister of Culture at the time, Roselyne Bachelot, castigated “absolutely unspeakable remarks” while recognizing the Lilas rapper as an “undeniable talent”.
“And this talent gives power, a very considerable influence to the unacceptable comments he makes,” she continued.
A speech reused as is by Freeze Corleone in the introduction to “Ancelotti”, a piece from his latest album.