“Apologia for terrorism”: Freeze Corleone banned from concert in Lille, legal action

“Admiration” for Hitler, “conspiracy remarks”, “anti-Semitic” words: the prefecture banned the concert planned for Thursday in Lille by the rapper Freeze Corleone, targeted by an investigation for “apology of terrorism”, a decision against which the prominent figure and controversial French rap scene has filed an appeal.

The summary hearing before the Lille administrative court is scheduled for Thursday at 10:30 a.m., a few hours before the concert scheduled for 8:00 p.m. at the Zénith, a 7,000-seat hall. “Freeze Corleone has never had a criminal conviction, and his previous concerts have always taken place peacefully,” his lawyer, Me Sanjay Mirabeau, told AFP.

But for the Northern prefecture, “the lyrics of several songs” from the 31-year-old Ile-de-France resident contain “conspiratorial remarks, openly anti-Semitic and marked by admiration for the person of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich”. The Northern prefecture therefore announced on Wednesday the ban on its Freeze Corleone concert, targeted by a preliminary investigation by the Nice prosecutor's office for advocating terrorism for words appearing to evoke the Nice attack. The rapper should have performed Thursday evening at the Zénith in Lille, which can accommodate up to 7,000 spectators.

Also read: Iannis Roder: “Freeze Corleone anchors anti-Semitic stereotypes present in the suburban imagination”

“The lyrics of several Freeze Corleone songs contain (...) conspiratorial comments, openly anti-Semitic and marked by admiration for the person of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, as well as comments advocating terrorism, which refer to the Nice attack,” wrote the Northern prefecture in a press release.

In his song Haaland, a duet with the German rapper Luciano and released last Thursday, a passage seems to allude to the attack of July 14, 2016 in Nice, which left 86 dead and hundreds injured: “In defense I am Kalidou, you’re Lenglet. Burberry like an English grandfather. I arrive in rap like a truck bombing hard on the...", even if the term "Promenade des Anglais" is not pronounced.

Freeze Corleone, whose real name is Issa Lorenzo Diakhaté, was already the subject of an investigation in 2020 for “provoking racial hatred” after the broadcast of clips including lyrics such as “I arrive determined like Adolf in the 30s” or “every day RAF (nothing to worry about) the Shoah”. The investigation was finally closed, but he was dropped by his label Universal Music, which denounced “unacceptable racist comments”.

It is also in reference to Freeze Corleone that Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, considered that the show dedicated to rap DVM Show, broadcast on Twitch and in which the Minister of Culture Rachida Dati participated on Monday, was the “ den of an anti-Semite. If the sulphurous rapper participated in a previous show, filmed before the opening of the investigation by the Nice prosecutor's office, he was not present alongside the minister on Monday evening.