The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday expressed "consternation" at a string of rap videos uploaded by a rapper named Issa Lorenzo Diakhate (more often known by his rap-name, 'Freeze Corleone'), demanding the artist's music be taken down due to the shockingly antisemitic nature of his lyrics, coupled with the rising popularity of his music.
In a letter to YouTube CEO for Europe and Middle East Cécile Frot-Coutaz, Simon Wiesenthal Center Director for International Relations Dr. Shimon Samuels said that “Freeze has used YouTube as a vehicle to incite hate between young African-Europeans and the Jewish community, which is already targeted by extremists and jihadists in France, across Europe and the Middle East – all regions, Madam CEO, under your mandate.”
The letter continued: “In contradistinction to YouTube in the United States, the French National Assembly passed, on 24 June, the ‘Avia Law’ which requires the removal of ‘manifestly illicit’ hate and pornographic content on the Internet within 24 hours. This legislation is based on the 1 September 2017 German Netz DG Law, where Freeze’s idolatry of Hitler and Goebbels should lead to immediate action.”
In one song, Corleone raps the lyrics "Too many Cohens, Jews in finance, Jews in politics, Jews plotting, Jewish school books... Against them is the courage and bravery of the 3rd Reich and its heroic mysticism.”
Another, perhaps even more disturbing verse that Samuels quotes in the letter, goes:“Everything for the family, so my children can live as Jew landlords;
Kill a life, 'F' a Rothschild;
I arrived determined like Adolf in the 30s;
In the shadow the Bilderberg conspiracy;
To create an empire like young Adolf;
I am in Dakar, you in your Zion centre, America, slavery;
I don’t give a 'F', for BHL [French Jewish intellectual Bernard Henri Levy];
I don’t give a 'F' for the Shoah;
I have the propaganda techniques of Goebbels;
We get the German girls like the SS;
Kill a life, Lord of war like Mullah Omar [former head of the Afghan Taliban and an antisemitic ideologist].”
In other lyrics, Corleone declares that he “arrives determined like Adolf in the 1930s,” that he doesn’t “give a damn about the Shoah” and that “like Swiss bankers, it will be all for the family so my children can live like Jewish rentiers.”
Samuels also notes that Corleone draws his inspiration from the French comedian, Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, who is widely considered to be vehemently antisemitic.
"Even more disturbing are the more than one million hits on the eve of the Jewish New Year, and the sale of 15,000 albums deliberately issued on the anniversary of 9/11," Samuels said.
“We are aware of the professional dictum that ‘outrage equals attention,’ but malicious hatred can kill and is not ‘freedom of expression,'” concluded Samuels.
Last week, the Paris prosecutors office announced that it had opened an investigation into the rapper for "provocation of racial hatred," after about 50 politicians, including many within President Emmanuel Macron’s LREM Party, condemned the rapper.
Later on Friday, Universal Music France announced that despite the fact that the rapper's new album was commercially successful, they were cutting all ties with him because “the release of the album has revealed and amplified unacceptable racist statements.”
Last month, the official YouTube channel of British rapper Wiley was removed from the video platform due to "repeated violations," which came in the form of a tirade of antisemitic comments.