Kneecap are not any strangers to controversy

To their followers, west Belfast rave-rap group Kneecap are a rowdy, subversive drive of nature. However to many others, their inflammatory political messages make them harmful and amoral.

Following within the footsteps of anti-establishment rap teams like NWA and Run The Jewels, the trio current themselves as dissident underdogs, giving a voice to the oppressed.

Their lyrics, delivered in a rapid-fire mixture of English and Irish, cowl every part from drug-fuelled events to their want to free Northern Eire from British rule.

On stage and on movie, they’ve created a riotous expertise that is thrilled Glastonbury, received a Bafta award, and impressed what’s been known as an “Irish language revolution“.

However their rising profile has resulted in elevated scrutiny and anger about their political statements.

Throughout an incendiary efficiency on the Coachella music pageant in California earlier this month, they described Israel’s navy motion in Gaza as a US-funded genocide. Because of this, they have been known as anti-Semitic and branded “terrorist sympathisers”.

Now, footage from two earlier gigs is being assessed by counter-terrorism police within the UK.

In a single, the band allegedly name for the demise of Conservative MPs. One other appears to point out a band member shouting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah”. Each teams are banned within the UK and it’s a crime to precise help for them.

Kneecap have responded with a press release, saying they “don’t, and have by no means, supported Hamas or Hezbollah”.

They claimed that footage the place they appeared to say “the one good Tory is a useless Tory” had been “taken out of all context”, and apologised for the damage precipitated to the households of murdered MPs Jo Cox and Sir David Amess.

However Cox’s widower Brendan was unimpressed, calling their assertion “solely half an apology”. Downing Avenue agreed, describing their phrases as “half-hearted” and “utterly unacceptable”.

The row was mentioned within the Home of Commons on Tuesday, with Shadow Dwelling Secretary Chris Philp calling their feedback “evil”.

It is not the band’s first brush with controversy. If something, controversy is of their DNA. However this time, the fallout threatens to engulf their profession, with venues and festivals beneath strain to cancel the band’s gigs.

To know how we bought right here, this is Kneecap’s origin story.

Kneecap have been shaped in 2017 by rappers Mo Chara (Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh) and Móglaí Bap (Naoise Ó Cairealláin), alongside beatmaker DJ Próvaí (JJ Ó Dochartaigh).

Their profession was sparked by an incident through which Móglaí and a good friend have been out spray-painting the day earlier than a march in help of an Irish Language Act.

Móglaí had written “cearta” (rights) on a bus cease when police arrived. He fled however his good friend was arrested, and spent an evening within the cells after refusing to talk English to the police.

They documented the incident within the tune C.E.A.R.T.A, which they launched “only for the craic. No plans for after,” Mo Chara advised the Irish Instances.

To their shock, the tune was playlisted by Irish broadcaster RTÉ, solely to be eliminated after listeners complained about drug references within the lyrics.

After that, their output was sporadic. The mixtape 3CAG (slang for the drug MDMA) arrived in 2018, adopted by the singles H.O.O.D and MAM – devoted to Móglaí’s mom, who had died by suicide.

These early information showcased a capability to maneuver between sharp satire, tender vulnerability and the experiences of Northern Eire’s “ceasefire infants” – the era born across the Good Friday Settlement in 1998.

Speaking to the BBC in 2023, the band stated they have been impressed by US bands like Useless Prez, NWA and Wu Tang Clan.

“Insurgent music in Eire has all the identical type of concepts as hip-hop in America. A neighborhood that is oppressed, utilizing songs to revolt ultimately,” stated Mo Chara.

Unusually, they carry out most of their lyrics in Irish, reclaiming the language from rural people music.

“The one method that Irish historical past and mythology was handed down was orally. I feel that is why it is vital for us to have that intertwined with our music,” Móglaí Bap advised Crack journal final 12 months.

Kneecap’s lyrics regularly include Republican slang and slogans. Even their title is a reference to the IRA’s chosen methodology of punishment for alleged drug sellers through the Troubles.

The messaging has landed them in scorching water earlier than. DJ Próvaí misplaced his job as a trainer in 2020 after his college was alerted to a video of a live performance the place he’d painted “Brits out” on his buttocks.

Two years later, the band made headlines in Belfast after commissioning a mural of a burning police automobile with a slogan criticising Northern Eire’s pre-Good Friday police drive, the RUC.

Designed to advertise a pageant look, it was criticised by politicians throughout the spectrum.

“Detest to offer the band extra publicity,” stated Alliance chief Naomi Lengthy, “however as a neighborhood we have to begin asking ourselves what messages we’re sending out concerning the sort of future we would like.”

The band have claimed their tackle Republicanism is partially tongue-in-cheek – satirising the self-important sloganeering they grew up with.

“Republicanism is so huge, and on a spectrum,” Móglaí Bap advised the New York Instances. “We prefer to toy with it. We prefer to take the irony on.”

Actually, the band’s gleeful celebration of drug tradition places them at odds with the previous guard of the motion – however the band are critical about their want for a unified Eire.

“The British authorities has failed us for 100 years,” Mo Charra advised Vulture final 12 months. “It is not like this can be a trial run. You’ve got had sufficient time and it is failed.”

Kneecap’s status grew in 2024 with the discharge of a movie, additionally known as Kneecap, which offered a semi-fictional, and infrequently hilarious, account of their rise to fame.

Starring the band as themselves, with Michael Fassbender as Móglaí’s father, the film received the viewers award on the Sundance Movie Pageant, with critics praising its “punky defiance” and “unruly power“, and was nominated for six Baftas.

It was adopted by their debut album, High quality Artwork, an idea file that threw followers right into a hedonistic evening out with the band at a fictional Belfast pub known as The Rutz.

With songs that skewered the music trade and addressed Northern Eire’s psychological well being disaster, it showcased a band with extra to say than their status recommended.

Nonetheless, in an period of sanitised, apolitical music, Kneecap’s instincts for provocation and protest have been inevitably going to attract consideration.

Professional-Palestinian chants have featured of their gigs because the begin of the most recent Israel-Gaza struggle. However once they introduced these messages to Coachella, they confronted a brand new degree of scrutiny and criticism.

Kneecap weren’t the one individuals who uttered pro-Palestinian messages on the pageant, however accusations of genocide and video screens that declared “F*** Israel” have been seen by some as crossing a line into hate speech.

The organisers of Israel’s Nova Music Pageant, the place greater than 360 individuals have been killed by Hamas in 2023, stated Kneecap’s message “deeply damage” their neighborhood, and invited the band to go to an exhibition concerning the victims and survivors – “to not disgrace or silence however to attach”.

Others took a extra strident tone. A music trade group known as The Inventive Group For Peace, together with Sharon Osbourne, known as on the US authorities to revoke the band’s visas.

The band’s supervisor defended their actions. Citing Hamas-run well being ministry figures that greater than 50,000 Palestinians had been killed because the begin of the struggle, Daniel Lambert characterised criticism of the Coachella efficiency as “ethical hysteria”.

“If someone’s damage by the reality, that is one thing for them to be damage by,” he advised RTÉ1. “But it surely’s actually vital to talk fact and fortunately, the lads aren’t afraid to try this.

“They’ve the bravery and the conviction, given the place they’ve come from in a post-conflict society, to face up for what’s proper, and [they] are prepared to try this even though it could hurt their profession.”

Proper now, their profession is beneath intense strain.

Since Coachella, Kneecap have obtained demise threats and have been dropped by their reserving brokers within the US, which might jeopardise their visas forward of a forthcoming sold-out tour.

The invention of the live performance video through which the band shouted “the one good Tory is a useless Tory” and suggested the viewers to “kill your native MP” shocked the political institution, with counter-terrorism police reviewing the footage.

In Scotland, First Minister John Swinney has known as for the band to be dropped from Glasgow’s TRNSMT pageant, saying their feedback had “crossed a line”.

The Eden Undertaking in Cornwall has cancelled their gig in July, and others, together with Glastonbury, are beneath strain to name off appearances.

Dwelling Workplace minister Dan Jarvis stated on Tuesday: “There’s an ongoing reside police investigation, so the federal government would urge the organisers on the Glastonbury Pageant to suppose very rigorously about who’s invited to carry out there later this 12 months.”

On the identical time, the criticism has solely elevated the profile of an act who have been basically an underground act a month in the past.

This week, Kneecap’s album entered the iTunes chart in Italy, Brazil and Germany for the primary time.