French rapper Freeze Corleone embodies how conspiracy theories and recycled anti-Masonic tropes seep into youth culture through the underground rap scene.
In his essay “Rap et anti-maçonnerie, étude d’un cas français”, published in La Chaîne d’Union, historian Stéphane François traces how French rap has become a surprising vessel for the transmission of anti-Masonic ideas. For François, the case of Freeze Corleone, born Issa Lorenzo Diakhaté in 1992, stands out as emblematic. The French-Senegalese rapper operates on the fringes of the rap world, aloof from interviews but notorious for provocative references, blending Star Wars and Marvel with conspiracies about the Rothschilds, Illuminati lore and Holocaust denial.
The controversy began in earnest with the release of his 2020 album La Menace Fantôme (LMF), defended by some critics for its “artistic quality” but condemned by anti-racist groups like Ligue Contre le Racisme et l’Antisémitisme (LICRA) for its anti-Semitic content. What appears new is in fact a remix of very old ideas. “We are clearly in an anti-Judeo-Masonic discourse identical to that of far-right conspiracy theorists,” François argues, “enriched nonetheless with a few new themes.” References to the Illuminati, HAARP and MK-Ultra, borrowed from American conspiracy culture, sit alongside familiar tropes of Freemasonry as satanic, elitist and destructive of nations. For François, the pattern is unmistakable: Corleone and others are recycling 19th-century fantasies for a 21st-century audience.
Yet rap gives these refrains a reach that earlier pamphlet pushers could never have dreamed of. Underground tracks rack up millions of views on YouTube. Provocation is part of the business model: Corleone released Projet Blue Beam on the anniversary of the 2015 Paris attacks, and delayed LMF to 11 September 2020, aligning it with 9/11 conspiracies. Such choices marketise outrage, while also embedding the music in a conspiratorial worldview that suggests hidden forces manipulate every global event.
François situates this within a broader current: conspiracy-tinged rap across Europe. French rappers such as Nekfeu, Keny Arkana and El Matador, or international figures like Wiley in the UK, have trafficked in variations of these themes, from Illuminati to Zionist plots. For adolescents and young adults, rap continues to carry the aura of rebellion, even though, as François points out, many artists are “above all businessmen who manage their image very well.” To maintain credibility as subversive, some gravitate toward conspiratorial radicalism.
For François, what is troubling is not only the persistence of anti-Masonic and anti-Semitic tropes but their industrial-scale dissemination. Rap is a lucrative market, and provocative artists such as Corleone are highly profitable. Music, messaging and money are intertwined. Few of these groups face legal consequences for the viral dissemination of their nauseating messages, in part because underground scenes evade mainstream scrutiny.
The case of Freeze Corleone, then, is not merely about one artist. It reveals how conspiracy theories adapt to new cultural vehicles, surviving by embedding themselves in subversive aesthetics.
Original article “Rap et anti-maçonnerie, étude d’un cas français” by Stéphane François was first published in French in La Chaîne d’Union, vol. 108, no. 2 (2024), pp. 95-101; republished by Fragments sur les Temps Présents on 26 March 2025.
It is available here.
La Chaîne d’Union is a French journal dedicated to the study and history of Freemasonry, its philosophical traditions and its cultural reception.
Fragments sur les Temps Présents (often abbreviated as #FTP) is an independent French-language editorial platform blending essays, short-form reflections, and commentary on extremist ideologies, conspiracy theories, identity politics, geopolitics and cultural phenomena.
