BMG has been exposed for signing Paris-based rapper Freeze Corleone despite allegedly knowing he was dropped by Universal Music Group because of Holocaust-denying and antisemitic lyrics.
According to a report from The New York Times published on Friday (February 3), internal documents showed that BMG’s French division weighed the financial benefits of signing Corleone in 2021 against his history of hate speech – and ultimately decided to sign him so long as they could bury the lyrics and hide their involvement.
Emails obtained by The Times showed BMG execs noting Corleone was “France’s fastest growing artist in the last two years” and would thus “really help us meet our revenue target.”
Another email said that “in order to mitigate the risk of possible controversy,” their contract would ensure BMG had the right to approve Corleone’s lyrics. It also added there should be “no BMG logo anywhere on the release.”
On the 2018 song “KKK,” Corleone raps about “Nazi vehicles” and calls himself a young Adolf Hitler.
On his 2020 Universal Music France album La Menace Fantôme, he includes lyrics that mention a “fraternity like Aryans.” Despite going double platinum, Universal soon dropped him because the album had “revealed and amplified unacceptable racist statements.”
BMG signed a $1million, one-album deal with Freeze Corleone in October 2021, but decided to cancel the contract three weeks later and just one day before releasing his first single. After a review of his past lyrics, BMG’s German team apparently told the French team that they needed to end the relationship immediately.
Responding to the new report, BMG issued a statement to Billboard.
“Today’s New York Times story confirms that as soon as senior BMG executives became aware of the historic allegations against the artist, it ended their relationship,” they said. “No record was released. BMG stands firm against anti-Semitism and hate.”
The news arrives just under a year after Capitol Records’ PR nightmare when they signed and then dropped A.I. rapper FN Meka amid major scrutiny.
Activist group Industry Blackout called for a public apology from Capitol Records just hours prior to the announcement ending its partnership with the project.
“While we applaud innovation in tech that connects listeners to music and enhances the experience, we find fault in the lack of awareness in how offensive this caricature is,” the group wrote in part.
“It is a direct insult to the Black community and our culture. An amalgamation of gross stereotypes, appropriative mannerisms that derive from Black artists, complete with slurs infused in lyrics.”
Hours later, Capitol returned with a statement of its own that read: “CMG has severed ties with the FN Meka project, effective immediately. We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it.
“We thank those who have reached out to us with constructive feedback in the past couple of days—your input was invaluable as we came to the decision to end our association with the project.”
If we die, they don’t care. But if we say a word that somebody don’t like, they want to kill us.
Yes. It kinda gives you an idea who is controlling things, don’t it? One certain group that is above all criticism. The eternal victims who are never at fault. Wake up people.
But you’re killing your own people. Those few deaths caused by cops you’re all so upset about are not even a drop in a bucket. It’s YOU who’s killing your own. Even all those slaves that ended up in the US were initially caught by other blacks. Whitey never went into the bush, you did that yourself and sold your brother for worthless trinkets and a pat on the shoulder. 99% of blacks getting killed are killed by other blacks. Jews are not killing Jews. Fix your own mess and don’t expect white people to do it for you. That’s the message here. Why should we care if you don’t even care about your own race. Stop that hypocrite nonsense and fix your own community with it’s macho culture of violence and poor people mentality. About time you stop b1tching about slavery too, you only are demeaning yourself. It’s passed and gone. Get over it and get your own house in order.
But the white Jew is killing Palestinians.
If we were given back all of our creative content stolen by Jews and equity from all companies that had a stake in Slavery (i.e. Lords of London). WE would have the economics to fix “our” problems colonialism created. Equity over equality.
Jews may not kill other Jews but they certainly get people from other races to do it for them if they are competition, then it just gets labeled as a hate crime. So there’s that.
The transatlantic slave trade was run by jews. Their Talmud teaches them that all other races only exist to serve the jew.
Too bad the holocaust never happened.
— Six million Jews were murdered between 1933 and 1945. How Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party turned anti-Semitism into genocide.
— Six million Jews were murdered between 1933 and 1945. How Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party turned anti-Semitism into genocide.
Holocaust is a bullshit story alright
Do you even know what Semitism is? White Ashkenazi Jews hijacked that word many moons ago in an attempt to steal history. What’s shocking is that if you look at the region where Semites actually originate, you would know damn well that they couldn’t have been Caucasian.
We got people who hate Israel sitting in the US house of representatives. One just got kicked off her committee. But the left gives them a free pass.
You beat me to that one.
I would date a jewish girl actually
Yet she wouldn’t date you.
Freeze Corleone has never been convicted of Holocaust-denying and antisemitic lyrics.
To this day, I haven’t seen a mass cemetery of 6mil jewish people. Look it up, there’s not one mass cemetery of holocaust victims.
I looked up the state of the union address in 1945, the president didn’t mention a holocaust.
red cross records.
if they lied about everything else, it’s fair to say they lied about the holocaust too. Not saying no one died, but it was nowhere near the 6mil number.
Man, I hope you are just pretending to be this ignorant. Of course they aren’t in one big cemetery, the extermination of the Jews took place in many sites across Europe over a number of years, and many corpses were burned. I know it’s fun to come on here and say provocative things to get a reaction from people, but when you say things that are not only wrong, but offensive, you could be saying them to a young person, or maybe a very stupid person, who would actually believe some or all of what you are saying. Be careful, there are people out there who are actually as stupid as you are acting.
So its bad to have a antisemitic hidtory but ok to rap about killing black plp?
Yes. That proves you that jews are worth more than black people. I don’t agree, but that’s how it seem to be? Jewish lives appear more worthy than black lives. Did you know that there are people in the congress who support abortion in US but vehemently opposes it in Israel. These are jewish dual citizens that are grossly overrepresented in such positions of power. They are only 2% of US population but make up like 20% of congress. It’s always lsrael first, US second.
This comment section sure got weird as shit. It’s really sad when people are too stupid to divide things out for themselves, so they need to find and blame a boogie man. Good luck to you all. God lives you. Jesus, who was and always will be a Jew, loves you. Big hugs.
They said I could sing like a jaybird/
But nigga, don’t say the J word!
Ice cube was ahead of his time!
where did he denied the holocaust? 😂
i’ll wait
he never denied the holocaust. Prove me that i’m wrong i’ll wait. hhdx ya’ll need to check ya’ll fax.
Well, on the bright side, at least he is wearing a mask. He probably has all 10 of his jabs too lol