Rapper Freeze Corleone was sentenced Monday in Nice to 15 months in prison and a fine of 50,000 euros for advocating terrorism in a song suggesting a reference to the attack of July 14, 2016.
The case concerns the song “Haaland”, a duet with the German rapper Luciano, where Freeze Corleone seems to identify with the author of the attack which left 86 dead and hundreds injured on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.
Even if the name of the avenue is never pronounced, it is suggested by the rhymes and the silence which follows the interrupted sentence: “In defense I’m Kalidou, you’re Lenglet. Burberry like an English grandfather. I arrive in rap like a truck that bombs hard on the…”
“Art can and must shake us up,” acknowledged during the hearing in February the public prosecutor of Nice, Damien Martinelli, before describing Freeze Corleone as the “God of French rap” because of “a nauseating ideological background and a desire to be provocative in a mercantile logic.” He had requested an 18-month suspended prison sentence.
Issa Lorenzo Diakhate – the real name of the 33-year-old rapper – never reacted: he chose silence during the investigation and did not come to the trial or the deliberations.
Words that have not been spoken
His lawyer, Me Adrien Chartron, announced Monday that he would appeal, denouncing a decision “which is more authoritarian, discretionary than legal” insofar as the conviction relates to words that were not pronounced.
In addition to the suspended prison sentence and the fine, the rapper was sentenced to pay 2,800 euros in damages to each of the civil parties and banned from coming to the Alpes-Maritimes for three years.
Several victims of the attack and victims’ associations had filed civil suits to denounce the commercial use of their suffering and had bitterly regretted that the rapper did not appear at the trial, if only to listen to them.
“I can’t believe that we can glorify their nightmares,” declared Hager ben Aouissi, president of an association supporting the child victims of the attack, now adolescents or young adults, the audience of Freeze Corleone. “Terrorism must not be an image of power, it cannot be a figure of speech.”
Dropped by his label Universal Music after a first investigation in 2020 for provocation of racial hatred, finally closed without further action, Freeze Corleone has given up performing in concert since a cascade of prefectural cancellations following the opening of the Nice investigation in early 2024.
But the internet remains a powerful vector of influence and income: the album “The Phantom Menace”, from which the duet “Haaland” is taken, recorded 5.2 million plays on Spotify in the 24 hours after its release, the prosecutor recalled.
